


"The future is never certain until it becomes the past.”

by ImperialParagons



Series: Tal'shanri, Barsen'thor [2]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-05-28 00:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 42
Words: 32,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15036884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImperialParagons/pseuds/ImperialParagons
Summary: Part Two of a retelling of the Shadow of Revan storyline from the PoV of a Chiss Jedi Consular.Covering Rishi including the main story, flashpoints, and references to various class missions.Comments Welcome!





	1. “Master O’a has requested a meeting with you on Rishi.”

“Safe travels Barsen’thor.” Shuuru smiled at Tal’shanri, and dabbed at his eyes gingerly. “Circumstances of your stay aside, I’d gotten used to having you around again. I’ll miss having you over for dinner.” Of all the unexpected highlights of having been confined to Manaan, Shurru’s genuine friendship had been perhaps the most surprising. On his home planet and among his family, the Selketh had an amicable easy charm that hadn’t always come across during his tenure with The Rift Alliance. He laughed easily, and more than once Tal’shanri had seen him sit down with his children and simply listen as they had talked.

His life could feel so normal, so stable, so very much like what the Jedi were supposed to be fighting to protect for others. Her lawyer had been right, Manaan had been restive; a small glimpse of what a lasting peace might look like. “I’ll miss you and your family as well.” She put an arm around him in a half hug, something that had become common between them lately. A friendship that couldn’t have existed even six months ago that now Tal’shanri regretted having to leave behind. “Next time I visit, I promise, no unauthorized landings and no secret lab raids.

He laughed and his eyes went to the sword on her back. “Yes, well, good luck destroying that cursed blade, I told the Jedi who left it with us that it would only bring evil. Maybe the force ever serve you in your quest to find a way to deal with the death that follows in its wake.” He had never told her who the Jedi had been that originally had brought the sword to Manaan, and she had never told him the truth about what had happened in the lab. Shuruu had simply mentioned to her that his government had approved her acquisition of the sword as a reclaimed relic one night over dinner. The lawyer on Lana’s retainer had most likely filed the paperwork, he was always four steps ahead, as he had asked her about it while she’d still been in holding. Being The Barsen’thor on a quest to destroy a powerful darkside artifact had proved a convincing cover story.

The truth, as always, was more complicated. She had failed three times to craft a lightsaber, and the third had even been made with a synthetic Sith crystal. They had all overheated with in the first few moments of use. The last one she had tried had almost seemed to work, a long thin red beam had held for the first two or three swings before it had destabilized and lost coherency. The cursed blade was the only weapon she had found that was any use at all to her. But more than that, it was a part of her now. Even wrapped carefully and slung across her back it was still a presence in her mind.

The Sith Alchemy still flowed through her veins too, stalking through dreams that it warped into nightmares. But, it could wait, it was patient. Ever since the incident with Darok, it had become a part of her – one that wouldn’t be rooted out without killing her in the process. Such was the price for having committed an unforgivable crime of her own free will.

She squeezed Shurru’s shoulder one last time in goodbye and headed up the ramp to her ship without glancing back even as she heard him sniffle against tears he couldn’t stop. The lights came on at her presence, and a smooth female voice that sounded rather irritatingly like Tharan had just grabbed the vocal files from a holo-dancer whispered softly in a sensual manner, “Good evening Barsen’thor how may I serve you tonight.”

Nope. That had to change. “Do you have any alternative voice options?”

The ship was silent for a moment before a deep male voice came on, still with an overly sensual edge. “Is this more to your preferences?”

“No. Do you have anything more professional sounding?”

The ship sighed heavily in the deep low voice before a crisp robotic voice with an Imperial accent came on. “At your service Mistress Tal’shanri.” It reminded her slightly of Elara, with the overly formal dictation and Kassian inflection.

That hearing the word Mistress used as a Proper Title also reminded her of Lana was a feeling Tal’shanri pushed out of her thoughts. They would see each other again when the time was right. Pining after a future she was certain would unfold wouldn’t make it happen any faster.

“You have 219 unread messages. One marked as Highest Priority from Jedi Grandmaster Satele Shan. Would you like me to begin reading them to you?”

“Yes. Relay the one from Grandmaster Shan first please,” Tal’shanri paused, “What’s the date on the message?” It was strange the Grandmaster hadn’t simply called her holofrequency. Why leave a message on a ship she knew Tal’shanri wouldn’t have been able to access.

“Two hours ago. Relaying Message:”

“Barsen’thor,” Satele sounded she had aged several years in the space of three months. “Master O’a has requested a meeting with you on Rishi. Make that your highest priority.” There was a crackle of static and then, “That’s an order from the full council. May the Force be with you Tal’shanri.”

“Are there any messages from Theron Shan or Lana Beniko?”

“One message from L. Beniko, dated 34 days ago:”

“My dreams of you have been troubling. Stay safe.”

“Save message.” It was stupid and sentimental, but even just that brief sentence in Lana’s voice was enough to send a stab of longing through her. The dreams had always been so vivid, it all felt so real that thinking of Lana as anything other than the golden eyed specter at the edges of her dreams, whispering warnings when they slipped into nightmares, was all but impossible anymore. “Delete—“ Tal’shanri wanted to say delete all others but sighed in resignation instead. “Never mind about deleting, set course for Rishi and begin playback of unread messages.”


	2. "I am HK-53, the first prototype in a new line of HK units with a higher purpose than assassination.”

219 messages later.

Most of the messages had been automated news updates. Nadia had left two messages and Felix one; both relaying general updates to a large group of people. The Major had left a message four days ago that requested she come to Coruscant if she was free; a friendly invitation to have drinks and be part of a bi-monthly girls night. The other update from The Major was that Aric had been transferred from Quesh to work with CorSec on Corelia and that Elara was back on the team – but it sounded like The Major was taking playing politics poorly and drinking herself to death.

An anonymous message simply said, “They’re all with Imperius.” She didn’t recognize the voice, but suspected it was somebody on the Wrath’s behalf.

It was strange how much, and yet how little, she had missed in three months. It was easy to start to feel like the most important person in the galaxy, only to have the galaxy not so much as blink when you were gone.

“Approaching Rishi in thirty minutes. Do you wish to activate Prototype 53 before you arrive?”

Zenith had mentioned leaving her a droid, and it would be nice to have an escort if the rumors about Rishi being a pirate haven were true. Tal’shanri nodded in reply and headed to the cargo hold as the ship’s voice came on again, “I will disable the security field only after it calms down.”

That sounded ominous. The droid didn’t look too far out of the ordinary at first glance; a combat model based on the HK schematics that Czerka had recovered. They had gotten slightly more common ever since a small army of them had been found frozen on Belsavis, but, they were notorious for not obeying orders and only 1:10,000 made it off the production line. They commanded a price that only a Hutt, or corporate bosses, could afford. How Zenith had gotten her one…

“Statement: Greetings Master! I am HK-53, the first prototype in a new line of HK units with a higher purpose than assassination.”

“Statement: Your ship activated a force field around me. I would appreciate it if you would have it released so I can return to my duties securing the ship.”

“The droid was rigging thermal detonators to the engine core," the ship managed to sound offended as it interjected an explanation. 

“Concerned statement: I was simply ensuring that should the ship ever become invaded by a hostile force that I would be able to neutralize any possible invaders.”

“I’ll release you, but, you are to disarm the failsafe. Your instructions are to defend the ship NOT ‘secure’ it.”

“Resigned statement: Very well Master. I will occupy my time planning for every possible scenario that could befall you!”

The force field dropped and the HK droid moved to stand by her side. “We’re headed to Rishi. That will be a test of how well you follow orders NOT to kill everybody we see.”

“Offended statement: I have a higher purpose than mere assassination of meatbags! My purpose is to protect my master at all costs, even my own existence.” He put a robotic hand on her shoulder and patted it softly.

“Statement: Don’t worry master. I promise not to shoot any pirates that aren’t a clear and present danger to you!”

The ship jumped back to normal space silently and glided into a landing pattern with remarkable precision. Having an AI that ran the ship was a miracle of technology that Tal’shanri appreciated more and more every time it did something like that. “Raiders Cove does not grant long term docking permits. You’ll have to disembark and call for pickup.”

“Understood,” Tal’shanri paused, “Did Tharan give you a name? I don’t want to keep calling you ‘ship’ if you have a proper name.”

“You may set whatever designation you wish for me.”

Tal’shanri smiled at that, “I think I’ll stick to calling you Holiday.”

 


	3. "Here in Raider’s Cove we don’t judge people for being mass murders!"

The HK unit, true to his word, didn’t start shooting immediately, although despite his restraint, the locals still started to scatter not long after they had disembarked. One of the natives waved cheerily at them from his post at a holo newsstand and gestured to an oversized picture of Tal’shanri on the front page with the headline: ‘How the Barsen’thor got away with Mass Murder!’

“Wow! What an honor to meet the Barsen’thor of the Jedi Order! I mean, I know you didn’t actually personally murder all those civilians, unless you did, in which case, it’s still an honor to meet you! You’re famous even here in Raiders Cove!”

HK-53 picked up a paper and read with interest while Tal’shanri sighed and skimmed the cover for a moment before she answered. “I’ve been on Manaan for the past three months, I couldn’t have possibly done any of this.”

“Well, here in Raider’s Cove we don’t judge people for being mass murders! I mean, Commandant Margok of the Nova Blades who runs the town, he’s gotta have killed at least fifty people, maybe more! We don’t judge! Except Gorro. He says that scum like you are trouble, and that somebody needs to take you down.”

“Query: Where is this Gorro?”

“Oh he’s in the cantina, Gorro, he likes to talk a lot. Says a lot of stuff about a lot of people, but you I think he seriously has it out for.” The Rishi wiggled his fingers dramatically, “If you kill everybody in the cantina, remember, we don’t judge here on Raider’s Cove. Good luck with your business here Barsen’thor, and if you are here kill everybody, please consider sparing me. Somebody’s gotta live to spread rumors am I right?”

What a strange place Raiders Cove seemed to be. 

The meeting location for Master O’a was on the outskirts of town, and the whole town seemed to vanish before her as she passed through. Tal’shanri had turned off notifications alerting her to what the media was saying about her, and maybe that had been a mistake. She had assumed it would be more of the same about her and Theron, maybe the tabloids would dredge up some non-scandal from her previous missions, the type of infotainment trash she had come to expect. Nothing that would provoke this level of fear and terror from people. Just what had the news been saying about her?

There was a note stuck to the door of Master’s O’a’s retreat: “Blaster’s Path Cantina. 3PM or he dies.”

Why was nothing ever simple? The HK unit seemed smug but didn’t say anything as they walked back into town and into the single rowdy building. A nervous silence fell as they entered and the barkeeper dropped the bottle she had just pulled off the shelf. “We don’t want trouble from you.” She held up her hands in a gesture of surrender, as did almost everybody else in the cantina.

“I just want Master O’a back, I’m not here to hurt anybody. Whatever you’ve heard about me, it’s not true.”

Nobody said anything, and the single Rodian who hadn’t raised his hands in surrender slowly turned towards her, “Where’s your lightsaber than Jedi? Press says you don’t carry one anymore because you’re a Sith now. Says you kill people with a sword made from darkness; says you tortured Republic Soldiers, made them do terrible things.”

HK-53 had his rifle trained on Gorro but didn’t fire. He wanted to, but was waiting for a single threatening move. It was tempting to just let HK kill Gorro and get this over with, probably less messy too. Drawing her sword would only confirm his words, and using the force ran the risk of the situation spiraling quickly into a civilian blood bath. “I’m only here for Master O’a. Not to fight.”

Gorro drew his weapon but only managed to get it an inch out of the holster before HK-53 put a shot right between the Rodian’s eyes and he slumped to the table.

“Query: Does anybody else have anything to say about my Master?”

The room was pindrop silent.

Tal’shanri knew how this must look. Her with what would look to any outsider to be assassin droid. Her not answering any of Gorro’s pointed questions. She had probably just confirmed all the rumors. This was such a mess.

“Gorro left your Jedi friend unconscious in the back store room. Take him and go.” The barkeeper still had her hands up. “Gorro had it coming. He should never have kidnapped a Jedi. Good riddance to him.” She spit on the ground at that. “No need to hurt anybody else, just, please take your friend and go.”

Nobody moved while Tal’shanri headed to the storeroom picked up the unconscious Bothan Jedi Master and draped him over her shoulders. He weighed more than she had suspected he would and she almost asked HK to carry him, but, it wasn’t far to his retreat and HK was much more useful watching for anybody that might shoot her in the back.

The Cantina erupted in sound again as soon as she was outside, and several people who had poked their heads out to see if she was really gone retreated back inside their shacks. “Thanks HK,” Tal’shanri considered telling him off for shooting to soon, but didn’t. “I’m glad to have you with me.”

“Modest statement: I am but your humble protector Master! There is no need to thank me!” He beamed and seemed pleased with himself anyway.

“Guard the door HK. I’ll be ok alone with Master O’a.”

HK-53 nodded and left the two of them alone. Tal’shanri sat cross legged on the floor, and slowed her breathing so she could meditate. It could be several hours before Master O’a became conscious again, but three months on Manaan had instilled a timeless sort of patience like nothing else had. He would wake when it was the right time, and until then she would meditate.

 


	4. Crazy babblings from somebody who spent more time with the past and future then in the present.

“Ah, my head.” Master O’a sat up slowly. “Barsen’thor, good! I see that you’ve arrived and managed to rescue me from whatever trap that pirate had in mind. I’ve grown sloppy lately, I’m surprised he got the drop on me like that!” He laughed cheerfully. “Ah well. Gorro’s future was numbered a dozen different ways, death by assassin droid the least painful of them.”

Tal’shanri didn’t ask how he could have known that. Even before The Order had met the Voss and learned about Mystics and their visions Master O’a had had a gift for prophecy. A flippant irreverent gift that had gotten him labeled as ‘eccentric’ in polite company, but a gift not the less. He talked to Force Ghosts on a regular basis, and rumors had long circulated that his abilities were really just side effects of a broken mind, crazy babblings from somebody who spent more time with the past and future then in the present.

“First Sword should have been here with you. I liked that Esh-kha quite a bit you know. His loyalty to you always stood out to me — but, Hallow Voice told me a long time ago about how you would dream of Bright Eyes, and that I was to do what I could to avoid the Grandmaster discovering that before it was time. I see why he didn’t tell you himself, you never would have listened unless he cloaked everything by calling her the whisperer.” Master O’a shook his head and winced again.

“I did wonder why the Esh-kha renamed me Bright Storm instead of Blade Storm,” his ramblings were a lot to absorb, and a Tal’shanri flinched at the mention of First Sword. It wasn’t regret she felt, but then again, maybe it was. He had been a friend. A friend before she had been capable of having friends really.

“Ah yes! Your new name was quite the discussion among the Esh-kha across many generations! But you’ve seen a glimpse of the future you and Lord Beniko share haven’t you? The Esh-kha couldn’t ignore True Love even if they don’t exactly understand it themselves; but, that’s running ahead of ourselves isn’t it?” He smiled, another overly cheerful expression.

“Anyway! I asked The Grandmaster to summon you because it is time for you to build a Holocron to preserve your essence for the future. The you that you are right now; you could still refuse the destiny set before you. There is still Atonement you could make, even for the breaking of Darok’s mind. You still have choices to make about who you want to be. This process, perhaps it will help you chose, perhaps not. The only certainty is that at the end you will have a holocron.”

“Wait, slow down, did you say the Esh-kha saw True Love?” Tal’shanri had seen it, or rather felt it — and it was a bolt of force lighting that struck with enough power to shatter a force shield with a blinding flash of light and heat, chasing after a fleeing shadow with the intent to tear the very fabric of reality apart over the fact that Lana had taken a bullet clearly meant for her; the thought of losing the other woman hurt worse than any bullet could have — but hearing somebody else call it that, it felt intrusive and surreal.

“As I said, running ahead of ourselves there. Let’s stick to the present for a brief moment,” he chuckled at his own terrible joke, “To build a holocron you need to achieve a state of Susheer meditation. The Native Rishi have a ritual for it. You’ll need to head into the jungle, find the waterfall and then call me and I’ll walk you through the rest.” Master O’a waved his hands vaguely in a shooing motion. “Go! You have less time then you know before Destiny catches up to you.”

 


	5. A warning from any one of a panoply of alternate futures.

“Statement: I find this ritual most objectionable Master!” HK-53 had complained the whole journey that he was not meant to operate in or even around water, and that he was going to rust if she wasn’t careful. He had also complained that it was his whole purpose in life to protect her and that being alone on the ship was even worse than rusty wet circuits. Tal’shanri could have ordered him to stop talking, but his loud chatter had been surprisingly effective at scaring off the wildlife. He had only shot a single orro bird so far.

“Good,” Tal’shanri eyed the waterfall with some trepidation. “That means you’ll be extra vigilant on protecting me while I complete it as fast as possible.”  The affirmation flummoxed the droid and he simply drew his rifle and sighed in resignation as she stepped under the waterfall.

Standing directly under the waterfall, she also stepped off a hidden ledge and water rose up to her shoulders as she sank into the soft mud. The torrent was ice cold too, in contrast to the tropical lagoons that had warmed under the sun for miles, or were outflows from the ocean, this particular waterfall must come from an underground source. The cold seeped in, icy daggers finding every gap in her armor, and it was not even a minute before she was soaked through. Two minutes, three minutes, the cold eased into a dull chill; the rhythm of the water against her shoulders now a familiar pattern of sound and sensation — and then she Sees:

—

“Don’t go to Ziost.” It was a vision unaligned with any particular time flow, a warning from any one of a panoply of alternate futures. “Theron will ask you to, but please, my love, don’t go.” It was Lana speaking, but a much older version, with silver streaks in her blonde hair.

—

“Ah, you already know what my power can taste like,” Tal’shanri didn’t recognize the voice, and this time there was only a voice, no visuals, but it still sent shivers up her spine. The Sith Emperor. It had to be, no other being could have commanded such a sense of the Dark Side with only a voice. “You’ve been fighting it, embracing the smallest distillation of my power only selectively, but you could be so much more than a Jedi playing at being a Sith if you will only Kneel before me.”

—

“The Order is lost.” Grandmaster Satele looked not just old, but frail and worn, her hair entirely silver, and her eyes a milky grey color from the onset of blindness. “The Republic has fallen. The Sith are ascendant. Balmorra. Corelia. I couldn’t save them a second time, not from you.”

Satele drew her lightsaber and there was a raw power that radiated from her even after all these years. “I never could see who it was that killed me, a lifetime of dreaming of this moment and you were always a shadow. I know I can’t hope to defeat you Barsen’thor, my only wish is to die well.”

—

“I’m not—“ the second half of that statement was lost as Theron reached for her mask, hand lingering on the back of her neck where the mask snaps on; and Tal’shanri lets him take a step in closer and put his other hand on her waist.

“I know this is hardly the place for a conversation like this, but, I think we could have something if you wanted it. Do you?”

—

The last memory left a bitter taste in her mouth, and she opened her eyes again. Dusk was starting to settle across the sky, blazes of orange and gold against blue that faded into navy; the silver speckles of stars slung low across the sky.

HK-53 was nowhere in sight. Strange for the droid to have vanished like that. Her body was stiff from the cold and sore from deluge; and the soft mud under foot took considerable effort to free herself from. There was a deep calm in her mind now, the waterfall part of what she now understood as a washing and cleansing. Four different moments of regret, each symbolically washed away, if only for a short while.

“You must now gather Kishu reeds, and then burn them under the moonlight on a mountain top; they will give structure to your visions — and cleansed from regret, perhaps you will See more clearly who you can become.” Master O’a’s voice didn’t come from her comm link, but as a voice on the Summer’s eve breeze.

Somehow Tal’shanri knew where the mountain top was, and even as the sky darkened and night truly set in; she ran through the delta with an effortless graceful ease. All around her Rishi was alive at night. Bioluminescent plants lined the delta flows, and off in the distance raider’s cove gleamed with electric lighting; a crashed ship too, glimmered against the darkness. A dozen different species of insect buzzed and hummed, chirped and called; and through it all The Force moved. It pulsed and called to her from the ocean; from the mountains; from the sand beneath her feet.

Calling the hillcrest a mountain top was slightly over dramatic; but the vista extended all the way to the sea, even with only moonlight as illumination, the view was panoramic for miles. The Rishi alter was small, a stack of river stones, supporting the antler of a great beast as a fire bowl; but The Force energy of the place was no accident. The moon cast a long shadow, silver light bathing the clearing as she set the reeds and lit them; the damp material only giving off a thin light grey smoke. Tal’shanri took a deep breath of it in, and again she Sees. 


	6. “I’m trying to get rid of a cursed rage weapon, not acquire another.”

“I know I said this was possible—“ Tal’shanri gripped the rail thin Zabrak in a force choke hold, then tossed him aside where he lay stunned. None of the others said a word.

“My Lord,” the woman who then spoke was a night sister, and her red robes swirled around her as she bowed all the way to the ground. “What my brother means to say is that we require more time to complete this task. You will have the weapon you desire.”

“Good.” Tal’shanri didn’t recognize her voice, and barely recognized that she was seeing a version herself. Her skin had turned a mottled color, with grey stripes and bands crisscrossing her body; she was more sith alchemy beast than Chiss anymore. Her voice was a perpetual snarl, and even ensconced in black Sith Robes that hid the extent of the change, she commanded obedience through terror.

“My Lord,” the night sister spoke again, face still in the dirt, “There is one complication. You will have to personally attune the crystal within your new saber. The sword,” Tal’shanri put her heavily armored boot to the woman’s neck and pressed her deeper into the dark black Dathomirian mud until the choking gurgles stopped and she let the woman up just enough for her to take a small shallow breath and spit out some of the mud.

“Do not waste my time with excuses.”

“Yes, my Lord. Sorry my Lord.” 

Time distorted ever so slightly, the vision glossing over her killing two more slaves in an impatient rage.

“Your saber is ready.” This time the Zabrak speaker was 6’5 and built like a tank, shirtless, he dripped with sweat from having been feeding one of the huge synthetic crystal furnaces Dathomir was famous for. Tal’shanri followed him, as she did the heat rose to the point where even wrapped in the Force and shielded from the elements, it was impossibly hot. Yet still they kept going. The only workers were now Zabraks wrapped in heavy protective suits layered with personal shields that strained to block the molten heat.

“We had to build a new furnace just for that sword of yours. Melting star iron is tricky business, nobody in the galaxy ‘cept me who could do it. Don’t know where you found these Kyber crystals either. Never seen anything like them before.”

“They’re infused with Sith Alchemy. More powerful than any simple Kyber crystals.”

“They killed a dozen of my boys while we were setting them, damn weapon is attuned only to you. Nobody else can touch it now that it’s finished.”

Tal’shanri grinned at him, mouth full of sharp teeth, and the Zabrak took a terrified step back. The transformation into beast was effortless, perhaps more natural than not any more. Nothing could hurt her like this, and the heat that would have killed almost any other creature in the galaxy was nothing to her as she picked up the lightsaber from the molten heart of the furnace. The temperature hot enough to have melted every last impurity out of the sword, and at long last, it was in the form it had always desired to be; a truly unstoppable, indestructible, weapon capable of cleaving apart the galaxy.

She activated her newly reforged saber and the blade shimmered into existence as a color Tal’shanri had never seen a lightsaber take before: black, void black; and the beam crackled with overtuned orange lightning. The saber was long and thin, impossibly lightweight in her clawed hands, and it spoke to her in a new voice, different from what she was used to from the sword, one that compelled her to obey; even though it was her own desire as well, “Kill them all.”

—

“Have you tried using a lightsaber Pike?” Senya put a hand on Tal’shanri’s shoulder sympathetically. “Or maybe a regular vibrosword?”

“I’ve tried both,” Her sword was on the war room table wrapped in layer after layer of material designed to absorb force energy. Even still it called to her, an angry hateful whisper that wanted to be a shout, “Aygo has banned me from even trying anymore vibroblades. The last one shattered mid-strike and sent shrapnel everywhere.” She smiled ruefully and Senya laughed.

“Tyth’s spear,” Senya snapped her fingers suddenly, “That would be unbreakable.”

“I’m trying to get rid of a cursed rage weapon, not acquire another.”

Senya rolled her eyes, “I don’t literally mean The Tyth’s Spear. It’s the name for a special type of lightsaber Pike used by the elite Knights. They came from Iokath originally, with the Gemini ships. They’re some of our oldest weapons, from the days when only the strongest knights were given any sort of Force weapon at all.”

“I don’t suppose you know where I could find one? I can’t exactly just show up to the Spire and demand they hand one over,” Tal’shanri sighed bitterly. Zakuul’s defection from The Alliance was still a sore spot.

“Vinn Attrius had one. You defeated him and our ancient codes of honor would demand he turn it over to you. If he doesn’t, I’ll duel him and kill him for and you can take it that way.” Senya’s eyes narrowed at that, and Koth edged away from her nervously.

“Senya is right, those lightsaber pikes are indestructible. Back before this,” Koth gestured expansively, “when my crew was still Zakuulian military, we transported an exarch to Tatooine. Course the first thing he did was get eaten by a Krayt dragon.” Koth laughed and Senya glared. “Locals killed the beast a few days later, said that even the dragon’s stomach acid hadn’t left a scratch on the pike. Least we had that much of him to send back home.”

“I believe this ‘Tyth’s Spear’ is worth investigating,” Lana’s eyes hadn’t left the sword on the table since Tal’shanri had put in there and she seemed more reserved than normal. “This weapon has caused enough death for a thousand life times, I’ll be glad to be rid of it.”

Even muffled, the sword sparked at that, glowing a dim orange and Tal’sharni could hear it screaming a single word at Lana over and over again. ‘Traitor’. It’s presence had faded from her mind, and so too had the effect of the Sith Alchemy still in her blood; they were both still there, but both diminished. She was now more herself then at any point since Korriban; and commanded the room with a radiant sense of calm and total clarity of purpose.

The galaxy was at peace for the moment, and people now looked to her to keep it that way. Rightfully so, as Tal’shanri had no doubt at all that she could keep the peace, that at the center of the storm she could hold against the hurricane – she knew now, through it all, who she was and what she could do; and that as impossible as it seemed at times, she was strong enough to be who the galaxy needed her to be.

 


	7. "No other epithet will ever be shaped the way I have shaped what it means to be Barsen’thor.”

The dawn rose slowly, and the first sunbeams across the hillcrest awakened Tal’shanri to a world in between day and night; touches of dusk in the valley below and distant peaks gold and gleaming with the promise of a new day. There was silver dew on her shoulders, and rather than rise and move to return to Master O’a, she closed her eyes again, and let the daybreak across her back, and sun rise and push back the lingering darkness until the shadows of the night were gone from the glen.

Only then did she stand up. Smoke from the smoldering reeds drifted across the glade still, swirling into faces and shapes; but the Force didn’t grant her a second vision, only glimpses of what she had already seen. Leaving the mountaintop and descending back into reality held no immediate appeal. To spend a life time awash in force visions, dreaming of memories from a thousand different futures; she envied Master O’a’s calling.

But her destiny was not to be a prophet and a seer. There was work to be done – a galaxy in need of a savior – and she was Barsen’thor of the Jedi Order — the great Warden Warrior.

Tal’shanri descended the cliff side with a single reckless leap, pushing off with the force and launching herself a solid eighty feet in an arc that ended with her crashing, splashing, through a breaker wave in the ocean. The tang of salt burned her eyes, but only for a moment before she stood up again and flicked water off her armor, shaking loose her hair in the same movement. The tide was headed out and the beach was empty except for the local wildlife; perfect for a run.

She raced along the beach, her boots tied around her neck so she could leave a barefoot trail of footprints in a perfectly straight line as she enjoyed the feeling of sand between her toes. There was a wild radical freedom in running like this, and even as she neared, and then crossed into Raider's Cove she didn’t slow her long-legged sprinting stride. Locals startled as she dashed by, but this time they didn’t all immediately retreat to safety – yesterday’s headline news already faded from their memories – some even ignored her entirely and went about their business like it was perfectly ordinary for a barefoot Chiss Jedi to sprint through the town square.

Master O’a was waiting for her. “Ah, yes, Susheer meditation is quite the sensory experience isn’t it? Come. Sit.”

Tal’shanri obeyed, and Master O’a held a gleaming silver box out to her. It changed colors rapidly, first cyan, then orange; then to a pulsing gold color signaling it was ready for a baseline brain scan. As Master O’a readied the equipment, the holocron chimed at her, sound like the wind against a tin roof. There were, after all, three patterns in her mind and the chime was meant as a question about what she wanted to leave as the baseline. In her altered state, Tal’shanri realized, she could briefly filter out the other voices in her mind, and only leave a record of only her thoughts.

And yet. Would it be honest to withhold from the future evidence of the darkness that she had wrestled with? She drew her sword, and Master O’a briefly turned in alarm at the sound, but said nothing. The blade’s edge reflected the warm gold light of the holocron, and yes, it had a story to tell today too. So did the Sith alchemy in her veins. The beast inside awoke slowly, a growl and a warning; rage under her skin and at her fingertips as it seethed and hissed. The holocron sounded three times, each the ring of a gong, and the third tone reverberated through her as the brain scan finished.

“You’re ready now. All of you are.” Master O’a sat across from her, and looked her in the eyes, “Why do you still cling to your title of Barsen’thor? You have seen visions of yourself as a member of the dark council; as the great leader of an Esh-kha army that sweeps both Empire and Republic before you; you have with in you the power to consume worlds, to shatter stars, to forge the galaxy anew again! And yet. Your identity is still Barsen’thor why?”

Tal’shanri considered, but spoke with a voice not her own. The sound of teeth and scales as the Sith beast within answered first. “It is her title of Barsen’thor that allows her to live through this,” she had to shift forms to accommodate letting the beast speak; and it hurt in a way it never had before to hold a form that was in between. “Being Warden of the Jedi Order, bestows an ancient power that protects her mind against me. Other titles are simply words, names, but being Barsen’thor the legacy of the Jedi protects her against being consumed by the dark side.” The beast laughed, a terrifying serpentine sound that invoked fangs. “At least for as long as she chooses to resist that is.”

The beast let go, and she shifted back to normal. Her own answer was different, “I choose Barsen’thor as my title because it is familiar to me. I know what it means. I know who it makes me. I know what people expect from me when they hear it — the title has become who I am as much as I have become the title. No other epithet will ever be shaped the way I have shaped what it means to be Barsen’thor.”

Master O’a didn’t react to the change, and paused to make sure there wasn’t going to be a third answer. Satisfied after a moment that two answers was enough, he spoke again, “A thousand years from now, a young Padawan finds your holocron and asks for your guidance; what do you teach her?”

“How to forge weapons.” Tal’shanri’s voice skipped up a full octave and there was a sharpness to it that felt almost like the sound itself could cut. “I teach her how to find the Esh-kha; how to dream dreams of battle and glory!” The sword sparked with golden force energy and vibrated rapidly. “To the Jedi we teach them how to be warriors once more! They have forgotten what battle tastes like, in favor of soft words.”

“Yes! We will teach her power! Power beyond what a Jedi could dream of,” the Sith beast turned her voice into a hiss, and there was a mental clash where it and the sword both wanted to speak at the same time and couldn’t.

“Enough!” The word came out as high pitched snarling hissing sound, but it broke the deadlock in her mind as both presences retreated for the moment. “We,” Tal’shanri slowly stretched the word while she considered her own answer, “We teach her what she asks for. Perhaps it’s power, perhaps It’s battle, perhaps it’s diplomacy and meditation. We can teach many different things.”

“And what would you teach a Sith?” Master O’a followed with the question almost immediately, perhaps hoping that she could stay in control.

Tal’shanri didn’t even bother forming an opinion on the question, and neither did the sword, which glinted gold but made no attempt to impose upon the Sith beast. There was a long pause; and the rage burned in her, but it thought and calculated too before again morphing her into the same uncomfortable in between form, “I would teach a Sith nothing. A Sith would have nothing to learn from a power that would only enslave and consume them.” It thought for another long moment.

“None of us would teach a Sith,” they all three laughed at the irony of that truth, the sound sharp, serpentine, and serene all at once.

The holocron clicked, and snapped shut, dropping into Tal’shanri’s lap. Its final appearance was both cyan and orange in a sunburst pattern. “And, we’re done! That’s your holocron!”


	8. "I need you to witness a Mandalorian death match."

“Simple meditation will add your thoughts and memories from here on out, no need to achieve the Susheer state.” Master O’a stood slowly, “Too much Susheer mediation can cause even the most level headed Jedi to do rather strange things.”

The Susheer state had finally all but worn off and Tal’shanri couldn’t help but suspect that even on Tython there was a psychoactive element involved in holocron creation. No longer under the influence she found she was exhausted, freezing cold, and still damp from having jumped into the ocean while wearing armor. “Has my droid showed up? I seem to have lost him.”

“Ah, yes! The HK unit! He returned here and threatened to kill me in several very creative ways unless I came with him and ‘fixed’ you. I had to deactivate him for the time being. He was quite persistent in wanting to go back for you.”

Master O’a smiled serenely and waved his hand toward a backroom where with a loud clatter HK-53 fell over from where he had been held in a force stunned state before he scrambled into the main room, his gun pointed at Master O’a before he lowered it and raised his hands in joy. “Relieved statement: Master! You’re alive! This meatbag here so rudely refused my orders to help rescue you!”

Master O’a raised an eyebrow but thought better of arguing with the droid. “Destiny will be calling you, as for me I’m going to head back to Tython. Master Satele will want a report—“ he held up his hands preempting her objections. “I’ll tell her the same thing I always do, that the future is never certain until it becomes the past.”

“Goodbye Master O’a, save travels to Tython and may the force be with you.”

“May the Force ever serve you Barsen’thor.” He winked and her holo communicator beeped insistently as if on his command, “like I said, Destiny calls.”

Tal’shanri didn’t recognize the frequency, beyond it coming from an Imperial source, and reluctantly put the call through. “So princess wanna-be-sith, did you fall through one of Raider’s Cove’s rotted docks to end up looking half drowned or is this another ‘disguise’ of yours?”

There was a long moment when Tal’shanri really, really, didn’t want to deal with Jen’sul. Last time they had met, circumstances had been much different. This time, however, it wouldn’t be a one-sided fight if it came to that. “I enjoy swimming.” Tal’shanri said the first thing she could think of by way of explanation before continuing. “Why are you calling me? I really doubt it’s just to insult me.”

Jen laughed, “That favor you owe me, I need you to witness a Mandalorian death match. Our code of honor demands that the person making the challenge bring a judge acceptable to both parties — and rather than play silly Mandalorian politics about it, I’m asking you. Your verdict will hold weight will all the clans. As Barsen’thor of the Order you command some of the highest respect we would ever give to an outsider.”

“What do I get out of it?”

“The clan leader I’m challenging has information Lana wants, time sensitive information.” Jen smiled over the visual link, a gamblers’ smile where she knew she had the upperhand and could dole out information in drips and still command total attention. “You help me with this, we’re all squared away — and I tell you where Lana is and what she wants. That’s the deal.”

“Deal.” It was way too easy. There had to be more to this than Jen was letting on, but it was the first lead she had on Lana. Even if it was a lie, this time, this time she wouldn’t be forced to play along with the bounty hunter. Nobody was a danger to her anymore after all. “Where are you?”

“Behind you.”


	9. “Oh, I know I don’t need to threaten you.”

HK-53 managed to look the droid version of absolutely mortified that he had somehow missed the bounty hunter, who now had a gun pressed to the base of Tal’shanri’s skull, angled not up to be a shot through the brain, but angled to be a shot that would have severed her spinal cord. “Kal warned me about what you can do, but I’m willing to bet I can still kill you when you’re like this.”

That was probably true. Tal’shanri only needed a few seconds to shift forms enough to stop a bullet, but Jen moved faster than that, and she’d take the shot at even a flicker of transformation. “It agrees.” Jen didn’t tell her to shut up so Tal’shanri continued, “I already said I would do it. There’s no need to threaten me.”

Jen dug the barrel of the gun into Tal’shanri’s neck enough to hurt, “Oh, I know I don’t _need_ to threaten you.” Jen drew a knife with her free hand as HK-53 drew his rifle in the same move.

“HK, emergency shutdown protocol.” The droid fell silent at Tal’shanri command, although she half expected Jen to shoot him anyway, but she didn’t — probably the Mandalorian thing about droids not being worthwhile to fight. A brief glance towards sound of HK’s deactivation was the only sign Jen had noticed the exchange at all.

Continuing like nothing had interrupted, Jen slipped the knife through a gap in Tal’shanri’s armor, and then ran the flat of the blade along the Jedi’s side. The tiniest flick of the wrist — or twitch on Tal’shanri’s part — and the razor sharp edge could slice through skin and muscle effortlessly, maybe not a lethal blow, but a crippling one for certain. “This isn’t about me threatening you into compliance at all. I could have started by telling you I knew where Lana was and used that to make any demand I wanted of you.”

“This, this is personal.” Jen’s voice switched from threatening to professional as she activated the comm line in her helmet and put it on speaker. “Call Kal’tyrel.”

“Jen—“ there was a crashing sound where Kal knocked something off a table and it took a second for her to recover. “—sorry, I was working on the paperwork for the Nova Blades deal again. What is it?”

“Proof that you shouldn’t have nightmares while I’m around to protect you.”

“Are you—“  Jen sliced Tal’shanri with the knife before she could finish speaking, knowing that she would be distracted trying to reply, and the long thin slash immediately burned with some sort of neurotoxin. It was not a deep cut, but it was a professional one, angled so that it bleed heavily. The Sith Beast inside her raged, and it wanted nothing more than to rip the bounty hunter limb from limb. But her vision blurred at the edges after only three seconds time, not long enough for her to react beyond a feral sound of rage. The ringing in her ears grew louder and louder, and she couldn’t make out what Jen was saying any more, and even though she tried to fight it, within twenty seconds of being poisoned Tal'shanri had collapsed to the floor completely paralyzed.


	10. “Have you ever seen a Mandalorian do anything peacefully?”

“You should have taken the antidote with you!” Tal’shanri blinked once, and wished she hadn’t. The dim lights in the med tent felt like individual suns burning her eyes. She squeezed them shut, but it didn’t help. Everything hurt. “Thank the stars you didn’t kill her!”

Tal’shanri tried blinking again as the voice drew closer, and gradually the world returned to focus. HK-53 was in a heap at the foot of the cot, and she was surrounded by a group of people she didn’t recognize. Mandalorians. A whole group of them, all in full battle armor. The man shouting at Jen had a medic marking on his shoulders and he sighed and stormed off after Jen said something dismissive in Mandalorian.

“Where—“ Tal’shanri sat up, and a surprised mutter ran through the group that she was recovering so quickly.

Jen took off her helmet and grinned in a predatory power-hungry way, her dark orange eyes had a subtle Sith-y glow about them that Tal’shanri had never noticed before. “We’re on Torch’s island. My clan and I here to challenge Shae Vizla of clan Vizla. They’ve hold up in this lair like cowards, only fighting border skirmishes alongside pirates,” she spat in the dirt. “We’re going to show them true Mandalorian spirit again!” A roaring cheer went up from the group at Jen’s speech.

“Spar! Caldera! Get over here!” Two figures shoved their way through the group, a thin young man, and a tall broad shouldered Zabrak woman. Both clasped their shoulders and dropped into a single knee kneel. “By honor and tradition, we make the challenge as a group of three,” Jen added by way of explanation of why she didn’t just storm the fortress herself. “The rest of my clan will wait here and plan the victory celebration!”

“This clan Vizla, they aren’t just going to let you walk in peacefully are they?” Tal’shanri rubbed her head and tried to process what was going on before shakily getting to her feet. Stars it had been a long two days.

Akavvi laughed, her voice low and husky. “Have you ever seen a Mandalorian do anything peacefully?”

“No.” Tal’shanri reached with the force for her sword, and extended her hand as she pulled it towards her from where it had ended up stacked with the rest of the double bladed weapons. “Jen is also the only Mandalorian I’d ever met before today.”

The blade glowed cyan in Tal’shanri’s hands, and even though she ached all over, the energy of the Mandalorians was infectious – but more than that, it had been months of only having training dummies on Manaan to practice against. Far too long since she had really fought anything. There was purpose to this fight; information to gained, progress to be made in unraveling the conspiracy, and that was enough to drive the exhaustion from her mind for the time being.

There was, of course, a price to be paid for healing as rapidly as she was. One that Tal’sharni should have felt, but didn’t, a darkness that burrowed deeper into her mind as the Sith Alchemy within worked to repair her injury. The beast knew – perhaps all along, perhaps it too was learning the extent of their symbiosis – that the more she relied on its power, the more inseparable they would become. It stayed silent, however, and let her believe in a false miracle. It knew the sword would pull her in the right direction, towards more killing – and indeed, the blade did, shining brightly in Tal’shanri’s hand as she glanced warily at Jen, “Let’s get this over with.”


	11. "Anything that can speak can try and control you."

“Hunting grounds,” Jen’s voice was a low whisper, “It looks like we’ll have to fight beasts before we can enter the stronghold.” The bounty hunter didn’t sound thrilled about the idea. Tal’shanri couldn’t blame her for that, any number of creatures could be lurking in the cultivated habit.

The grass rustled, and three sets of blasters all tracked the sound, the head of a Tonitran poking up and swinging around to look at them before Akavvi put a bullet through its skull and it crumpled with a dull thud. Four more tonitran heads popped up at the sound, and a fifth; this one much larger than the others waded through the grass towards them.

Torian had a look in his eyes that reminded Tal’shanri of Qyzen, and he primed a cryo grenade silently before rolling it through the grass. One of the unfortunate tonitrans stepped on the grenade almost immediately and it and froze, shattering and breaking in half while the blast sent frost shards in the direction of three more of the small dinosaurs. One of them dropped with thud, killed by an icicle spear. The other two dropped back behind the larger one who bellowed an angry challenge and barreled forward — right into an electronet.

It thrashed wildly as Akavvi and Torian each picked off one of the other two small ones. Even tangled up the large tonitran was still dangerous, if anything even more so. Satisfied that they had eliminated the immediate threat Torian and Akavvi swung around to check the perimeter and flush out any remaining tonitrans, leaving Jen and Tal’sharni to finish off the larger creature.

“Your sword,” Jen had clearly purposely waited until the other two were out of ear shot before she started this conversation, “It called to me in my dreams.”

“It does that.” 

“The fuck do you keep it for then? You should throw it into the maelstrom nebula and hope it’s ripped apart by gravity waves. Anything that can speak can try and control you — and that thing, that sword, is evil even by my standards.”

“I know—“

“No, you don’t.” Jen’s eyes narrowed and Tal’shanri took an irrational step back. In a fair fight, she knew Jen wouldn’t stand a chance; and the Sith beast coiled ready to strike, but waited and watched. It had grown more subtle since Manaan, which, was probably a bad thing but it certainly made it easier to have conversations when there was only one voice in her mind that always wanted to kill everything. “You don’t have the first clue what that sword can do.”

“And you do?” Jen drew her weapons, but Tal’shanri simply laughed with a grin full razor teeth as her hands stretched into claws and muscles strengthened. “Please. Tell me.”

Jen didn’t even blink at the transformation and there was no fear whatsoever in her eyes as she answered. “It can cleave apart stars. From the head of a fleet ship, you could wipe whole star systems with a single strike from light years away. It wants to unleash the Esh-kha on the galaxy again, but, only to have a foe worthy of fighting, it cares nothing for them. It knew that they have a name for me, and that if I wanted I could lead them in leveling the galaxy — it showed me a vision of the future, of all the people it wants you to kill and of a galaxy that bows to you.”

“It made me an offer, told me that if I join you when the time is right that there’s no reason we can’t be friends; that you and I are more alike than different.” Jen shook her head, troubled by the thought. “If it’s true…” The bounty hunter lowered her weapons slowly, “If you really are capable of all the dream told me you were, then you’ve certainly found a weapon capable of taking you there; and an ally in me. But, if your goal isn’t watch the galaxy burn, you’re being played and you need to find the nearest black hole to toss that thing in.”

In the background Akavvi and Torian had engaged another pack of Tonitrans, and Tal’shanri slowly let the rage flow out of her, dropping back to her normal size as she considered what Jen had said. The large tonitran was still struggling, although it had worn itself down enough to no longer be a real threat. “Why would you help destroy the galaxy?”

Jen ignored the question and walked over to the snared tonitron, putting an armored boot just below its jaw, as she drew a serrated knife. A slash to the neck caused the beast to let out a death scream, blood everywhere as it bleed out, its lower half thrashing around before finally falling still. Still brooding upon the answer to that question, Jen used the serrated edge to cut off the creature’s lower jaw, and then with a grunt and a yank pulled free its two front fangs, and tossed one blood covered tooth to Tal’shanri and pocketed the other.

“Because the only thing I love in the galaxy is Kal, and she’s just as out of place as I am. The Republic thinks she’s a traitor, and the Empire wants to use her as one. She just wants to go back to the days of playing dajarkic in seedy shadow ports and flirting with imperial agents.” Jen stood up, trained eye making sure there was nothing else of value on the corpse.

“In a remade galaxy, maybe I could give that to her. Not exactly the same, but, a place where nobody expects her to be anything more than a smuggler playing cards. A place where both of us could just be us, not who other people think we should be.”

Tal’shanri waited for Jen to follow up with a threat, or angry rejoinder, but the bounty hunter didn’t “The next kill is yours, and you have to share something.” Jen said simply. “I might think half of the mandalorian customs are bantha shit, but, sharing a hunt and kill with a new ally has me all sentimental about them.” There was just enough sarcasm in that to break the emotion of the moment and they both moved off towards the now distant sound of blaster fire.


	12. “Don’t just stand there Jedi, kill it!”

“You missed all the fun!” Torian grinned and Akavvi rolled her eyes.

“All the other beasts were juveniles, not worthy prey.” Akavvi pointed to a stone arch cut into the volcano side. “We did find the entrance to the compound though.”

Jen nodded and headed right through it, startling the rest of the group who had to jog to catch up with her as they all passed through a dark tunnel and into an open arena floor; the heat from the lava below pushing the temperature in the room up to a sweltering suffocating level. “I am here to challenge Shea Vizla of Clan Vizla to a death match!” Jen’s voice reverberated against the cavern walls.

Silence. Torian and Akavvi shifted uncomfortably and Tal’shanri almost asked them for an explanation, before she decided against it. Mandalorian customs were confusing at the best of times. They waited for what felt like ages while Jen paced the center of the room. “Coward! Stop hiding! You are no Mandalorian!”

That got a reaction, and a heavy stone door creaked up revealing another passage. “Neither are you. You’ll have to prove yourself first.”

Torian and Akavvi both winced and Torian leaned over and whispers, “Jen wasn’t born a Mandalorian, she was adopted into the clan of our leader after winning the Great Hunt; and her claim of being a clan leader in her own right is something that would have to be adjudicated.”

“Winning the Great Hunt entitles the victor to all Mandalorian rites and privileges—“ Akavvi stopped short as Jen stormed towards the open doorway, not bothering to wait for them to catch up. Again the three of them sprinted after her, and only just managed to catch up before the passage opened into a rocky habit with a dozen Krakjya scattered around.

It took Jen twelve shots to drop all of them, each shot perfectly placed to kill. There was a low growl, and a larger Krakjya leaped down from where it had been perched above the door and pounced at Jen who caught it by the claws just before impact and flipped the creature over her shoulders in a body slam.

It rolled to its feet, and pressed low against the rock, hissing and spitting with its hackles raised. “Don’t just stand there Jedi, kill it!”

Tal’shanri vaulted forward at the shout and stabbed the Krakjya just behind the skull with single strike; just as clean a kill as any of Jen’s. It felt ever so slightly melodramatic to have killed such a large predator with such ease — but the fight wasn’t over yet. With a gurgle from the large pond in the back of the habitat a Jurgoran surfaced.

This time Tal’shanri let the force flow through her, and drew the water in the pond into a thick rope-like coil, wrapping it around the Jurgoran, tighter and tighter, coil after coil, until almost all the water was constricting the beast. It was helpless in seconds, and try as it might to bellow and roar it was wrapped too tightly and only managed to make squeaking pinched noises. Normally she would have simply held the beast until it stopped struggling then approached it slowly to calm it with the force.

Jurgorans were terrifying creatures certainly, but still beasts that could be calmed. There was no need to kill the creature — Jedi didn’t kill needlessly. A long silenced voice spoke up in her mind again, that she had been suppressing her conscious didn’t mean it wasn’t still there, and Tal’shanri hesitated. But, no, a louder voice, a sharper voice, shouted that killing the creature was much easier.

It was the louder shouting that won out, and Tal’shanri sent a blast of energy coursing through the water. The Jurgoran squeak-screeched in pain for a solid thirty seconds before she could finally feel its heart stop. She dropped the force hold on the water and it sloshed back into the pond covering the body while the three Mandalorians looked on. Torian and Akavvi seemed vaguely impressed by the display; but Jen just crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “Force Lightning would have been more efficient.”

“Only Sith can conjure lightning, they don’t exactly teach that at the Jedi Academy.”

“Get Lana to teach you. You’re no Jedi anymore.”


	13. “Udesii darasuum.” (Rest eternally)

They headed back to the arena again, and this time there were three new Mandalorians standing there, and a banner hanging from a pole that hadn’t been there before. Jen nodded sideways at Torian who dug in his bag and pulled out a solid black banner that he hung from a pole on the other side of the arena.

“Mandalore’s champion.” The woman in the center pulled her helmet off and stared at Jen with calculating green eyes. “I’d heard rumors you were killing off clan leaders, uniting all the clans under one banner for some great war. Didn’t believe it at first, but here you are.”

“Killing you will ensure everybody else falls in line. You’re the last clan leader left with any spine at all,” That was almost a compliment coming from Jen, and Shae laughed ruefully at it.

“Never thought that would be true. But, maybe we’ve gotten soft over the years; maybe we Mandalorians need somebody like you to shake things up, whip everybody back into shape. Guess we’ll find out.”

“Guess we will.” Akavvi and Torian formed up behind Jen, and Jos and Valk flanked Shae. Both sides started shooting at the same moment, and it was briefly a chaotic mess with multiple combatants using flamethrowers. Tal’shanri rolled out of the way of a stray jet of flame, and force leaped to relative safety perched atop the stone entryway they had first come through.

There was a symmetry to the fight that she could really see from her vantage point. Torian and Jos were locked in shoving match; Valk and Akavvi moved in circles as Valk tried to keep Akavvi at a distance with a flamethrower, trying to corner her opponent into stepping on a mine while avoiding doing so herself.

Shae was holding Jen at bay with jetpack assisted acrobatics and several different types of flame attacks. The goal was clearly to wear Jen down, because from a height advantage, Shae could easily exploit even a single misstep. It seemed to be working; and Jen took a flamethrower blast to the leg that knocked her backwards and off her feet.

Shae dropped to the floor, and stalked towards Jen who couldn’t put all her weight on the injured leg. “Die well grand champion.” And there was a solid thirty seconds where it looked like it was over and that Jen had finally picked a fight she couldn’t win. But Jen dived forward in a tackle and both women went down; the fight dissolving into a straight brawl between the two of them as they rolled across the floor.

Valk stepped backwards onto a mine to avoid getting caught in the melee and screamed in agony as white hot plasma coated her lower body, seeping through the cracks in her armor — but Akavvi struck an instant later, a mercy killing if anything, and Valk was dead before the plasma burns could even set,

His wife’s scream distracted Jos, and Torian wrenched his arm down, hard enough to break it, and slammed the man to the ground where he lay stunned. Torian didn’t immediately move to deliver a killing blow, but Akavvi did, finishing him with a shot to his head.

Jen, meanwhile, had managed to draw a knife, and pinned Shae by stabbing through her hand; which gave her precious seconds to scramble to her feet and draw a blaster. “You fought well, die with honor Shae Vizla.” Jen didn’t immediately shoot, and let the other woman pull the knife out of her hand and stagger to her feet. “Udesii darasuum.”

One shot, clean through the heart.

Jen testily put weight on her leg, but swayed slightly. She glanced over at Tal’shanri and then away again, too proud to ask for healing. Not that Tal’shanri could have even if Jen had asked. The bounty hunter just gritted her teeth and walked toward the banner and pulled it down and ripped it in half before she shouted up at Tal’sharni, “As judge you keep half. Proof that you witnessed the battle.”

All around them a group of Mandalorians had started to gather, murmuring and looking at the torn banner. Tal’shanri stopped counting when the number had swelled to over two hundred, the compound apparently a massive labyrinth complex. When the entire clan had assembled, Jen shouted, “Clan Visla is no more! You all follow the banner of Mandalore now!”

The crowd was silent as a spokesperson stepped forward. “On behalf of the former clan Visla, we accept this transition.” He offered Jen his vibroblade, kneeling before her. Jen took it the crowd whooped and roared. “Drink with us tonight Grand Champion! To your victory and your new clanmates!”


	14. "The fate of the entire galaxy can wait until tomorrow when you’re good and hungover enough to deal with it.”

Tal’shanri stared off at the mainland and debated trying to swim for the tenth time in the past hour. Even having reactivated HK-53 to keep watch while she tried to mediate, it was impossible to block out the wall of noise that was a Mandalorian victory party.

What Tal’shanri really wanted right then was a good night's sleep in her own bed, on the nice empty ship, while they were in hyperspace. Far, far, away from anybody else.

“You should join us.” Jen was suddenly just there, staring off at the horizon, not quite pensive but wistful. The bounty hunter’s ability to move absolutely silently never failed to surprise Tal’shanri. “You might even enjoy yourself.”

“I might also kill half your new friends if provoked.”

“Like I said, you might even enjoy yourself.” Jen laughed as if that was funny. “Loosen up princess-wanna-be-sith. The entire fate of the galaxy can wait until tomorrow when you’re good and hungover enough to deal with it.”

“You know full well that the Jedi Order prohibits drinking to excess. Now what are you really out here?”

“Because you owe me a story, and I owe you information about what Lana has been up to.” Jen watched a ship in orbit pass overhead with a strange intensity in her eyes. “And like you, I might kill half the people there if provoked.”

“Fair enough.” A silence fell between them while Tal’shanri considered what to talk about. “As part of my duty to the order I trained a Padawan, the daughter of a diplomat from an outer rim world the Jedi have had almost no contact with. She was strong in the force. Maybe the strongest Padawan the order had seen in years — but undisciplined, prone to lashing out with the force as an emotional crutch.”

“She’s a Jedi Knight now, a powerful one. But, she’s still so young; too young to be a Jedi Knight. The Order stole her childhood from her the moment they asked me to train her as I traveled.” Tal’shanri looked down at her hands, and noticed for the first time the lines of grey discoloration running along her fingers. “I should have said no, but, they only would have had another master train her. She was too powerful, too valuable, for them to leave alone.”

“When I last saw her on Manaan, I knew then that The Order was training her to one day be a match for me if I ever needed to be brought in.” Tal’shanri laughed bitterly. “I read it in Felix’s mind too, he has no defense against it, and didn’t even notice that I was scanning his thoughts. It bothers him much more, especially that he sees it and she doesn’t."

“It’s only a matter of time before The Order sends her after me. They won’t tell her to kill me, that’s not the Jedi way, but they’ll send her to her death without a second thought.”

“Would you really kill your former apprentice?” Tal’shanri stopped and looked at Jen as the bounty hunter asked the question; again noticing the Sith-y glow in Jen’s eyes. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, impossible for a regular human’s eye color to change like that if they were exposed to enough dark side corruption; but it was vanishingly rare. More than that Jen seemed almost immune to The Force, it bent around her like she didn’t exist. Jen was something more than normal, but what, Tal’shanri couldn’t say.

“Yes.” It was a flat affirmation, even if it took her a moment to reach it.

“Then I might have to start calling you your royal-sithyness instead of princess-wanna-be-sith; and you might want to start figuring out a proper Sith name for when you burn the galaxy down.”

“This morning you stabbed me with a poisoned knife and now, what, we’re planning to destroy the galaxy together? What a day.”


	15. “I wouldn’t drink that if I were you.”

“Your day isn’t over yet either.” Jen laughed, and her eyes tracked what Tal’shanri was sure was the same ship from earlier. It must have been Kal up there. “Lana is on Rishi. In Raider’s Cove; working with that idiot SiS agent who couldn’t keep his paws off you.”

Tal’shanri let the taunt go, although, there was a moment of revelation that she didn’t have to -- there was no particular reason she couldn’t have told Jen to knock it off about Theron. Maybe next time she would push back, but for the moment Jen still had information she needed. “Where in Raider’s Cove?”

“In a safe house, the building with the green tiled roof just off the main docks; entrance around the back.” Jen narrowed her eyes and pointed at a smudge in the distance, and even with superior night vision Tal’shanri couldn’t tell for sure certain what the bounty hunter was pointing at. “Kal made a deal with the leader of the Nova Blades for information on the Revanites in exchange for Torch’s death.”

“Of course, that idiot Margok miscalculated what was going to happen with Torch gone. This time tomorrow, Raider’s Cove will be under new management; a whole pirate fleet with Mando crews under my command. Not bad for a day’s work.” Jen really would have made an excellent Sith Lord – the last time the Mandalorians had all been united, the galaxy had fallen apart. Letting Jen amass so many clans under one banner, did nobody else see the danger in that?

“You know what, I’ll drink to that.” Jen was shocked for a full thirty seconds at Tal’shanri’s reply.

“You’re—you’re actually serious aren’t you? I can’t believe I actually convinced you.” Jen laughed and then couldn’t seem to stop laughing and had to clutch her side to keep from doubling over. “You’ll regret agreeing to that, but Kriff Jedi, I’ve never been prouder to be a bad influence on somebody then right this moment.”

Tal’shanri already regretted it if she was being honest with herself, but followed Jen back to the party anyway and let Jen hand her a tall stein of a liquid that smelled more like speeder bike lubricant then something meant for drinking. She took a generous sip only to find it tasted like road tar and burned like it too. All around her there was drunken laughter and shoulder punching that occasionally escalated into bare fisted brawls. There was apparently a rule against carrying weapons (at least obvious ones) and even Jen seemed to have stashed her blaster pistols elsewhere for the party.

The energy was different than any of the casinos and clubs she had ever been in before, while most of them had an undercurrent of desperation — and waves of lust, and various other emotions she’d been taught to block out as a Jedi — the Mandalorians were reveling in the simple pleasure of still being alive at the end of the day. It was rowdy and wild, but not entirely unpleasant.

Akavvi was off in a corner, brooding over a rack of shot glasses, and she caught Tal’shanri’s eye gesturing for her to take the seat opposite. Given that she didn’t know anybody else, Tal’shanri walked over and sat down, curious why Akavvi seemed so interested in talking to her. “I wouldn’t drink that if I were you.” The Zabrak eyed Tal’shanri’s drink with a serious expression. “That’s a Voss Vision Quest. It induces—“

The warning was too late. Even a single sip had been enough for the hallucinogenic compound to kick in and Tal’shanri slumped forward onto the table, oblivious to Akavvi’s rolled eyes and sigh.

 


	16. "You still have a chance to avoid what is yet to come.”

“You’re going to have to choose.” It was a disembodied voice speaking, and Tal’shanri found herself standing in the middle of a large empty room that was cloaked in shadows around the edges. “If you wait until Ziost, it will be too late to stop the destruction. You still have a chance to avoid what is yet to come.”

First Sword stepped out of the shadows and walked towards her. “Bright Storm,” Tal’shanri took a step back, but went nowhere, and then tried to turn away from him, from the guilt that seeing him caused, but every which way she turned he was still in front of her, still walking towards her. “The galaxy screams in agony. You are at the center of a storm that washes away worlds. You unleash Void Thirst and chaos follows in your wake, you walk across the stars and devour them. Bright Eyes understands too late the hunger within you, and cannot stop it from consuming you. You destroy her in a fit of rage. Nothing survives. You alone haunt the spaces between the stars, the dark corners of dead worlds. Cursed to be discord, to howl in mourning against a backdrop of an eternal silence; to wander alone until time becomes meaningless and all that remains are smoldering embers of what could have been.”

The Esh-kha put a clawed hand on her shoulder, “Every step you take down the path you’re on chisels more of that future into stone; you have precious few steps left before it will be too late to turn back the tide of darkness within.”

A whole army of Esh-kha began to step out of the shadows, all armed with black blood stained blades, with blaster rifles red rimmed from overheating; with claws and teeth dulled from dealing death. They were chanting their terrifying war song as they marched across the room, parting around her, as they walked into a wall of fire and immolated themselves.

From somewhere in the shadows, and yet from everywhere at once, Jen’s voice rang out. “They killed Kal. I couldn’t save her!” The anguish in the bounty hunter’s voice cut to the bone, a howl and a sob of love lost. “I’ll do it. I’ll lead your army. Let the whole galaxy burn for all I care, there’s nothing left for me.”

“My son would have joined you.” Tal’shanri didn’t recognize the voice, but it too was anguished. “How many people have to die before you’re satisfied? Millions? Billions? Why does nobody else see that it’s not Valkorian doing this, but your own twisted rage? I won’t stand by and watch you burn down the galaxy any longer!” There was the sound of a lightsaber activating, and then a blood curdling sound of terror.

“Commander,” Lana’s voice was nervous, and echoed only from a single point in the shadows. “You’re dying. I can’t bare the thought of losing you again, not now that we’re so close!” There was anguish and worry and fear in Lana’s words; and the weight of anguished shattered lives began to feel like a weight on Tal’shanri’s own shoulders, slowly growing heavier and heavier.

“The soldier. The young Jedi. The politician. The spy. The Captain. The Grand Master. The wayward son. The Major. A hundred others.” It was the same disembodied voice as before, but this time Tal’shanri recognized it. Gaden-ko. “Turn back from this path, or let anguish be your legacy!”

“ _Turn back_ ,” a dozen voices. “ **Turn back**.” a hundred voices. “ _ **Turn back!**_ ” a thousand voices. " _ **TURN BACK!**_ " Ten thousand voices in a roaring wall of sound that hit her with physical force.                                                                                                     

 “Too late.” One voice. Commander Darok’s voice. “For what can atone for a shattered mind? What penance is there equal to the crime you have committed? What is the weight of judgement upon your shoulders? Who can meet again the measure of a memory? Where is the jury to render judgement and name your sins? Who alone is worthy to stand before you and your fiery sword of vengeance!?” He cried into the void, the shadows of the room, a moment ago filled with the sound of ten thousand shouting voices, silent and still.

“Justice flees before your face. A conqueror unopposed you shall be — but there is no solace in death for the wicked, only an eternity of gnashing of teeth, of anguish among the bleakest places, of terror and loneliness. The rocks will cleave before you, the stars dim their lights, and you shall go in darkness; the light itself driven out before you. You shall wander wearily among the shattered fragments of a future destroyed, and wish for death, but never find its final embrace.”

The room started to shrink, or maybe the fire along one wall was growing bigger and bigger. Maybe both. The room grew hotter and hotter, the flames coming for her, and yet running away only seemed to move her closer to them. The shadows melted, and there were ten thousand pairs of eyes watching her. They didn’t pity her. They waited for the final moment, where there was nowhere left to run to and she too would be burned to ash as they all were.

She wanted to scream but couldn’t, wanted to fight but couldn’t. All that was left is her and the flames. She turned, intending to stare death down, trying to recall what the Jedi said when death was inevitable and even though she had said it a thousand times, ten thousand times, a lifetime of times, the words slipped from her mind like smoke and ashes. Here in the final moments before vengeance came for her, peace and serenity were turned away by the hand of justice and refused her desperate pleas for relief.

Then with Tal'shanri at last trapped in the corner of a room full of watching eyes, the flames set upon her, scorching flesh, burning with the fervent melting heat of snuffed out stars and bombed out worlds; of starships made slag; of the rage of ten thousand watchful eyes that have waited for the the fires of wrath to consume their tormentor.

Death does not come for her – judgement does.

She knows only the burning now, her whole existence a funeral pyre for a live victim, a spectacle of suffering, there was only her own agony now, added upon, compounded by all the agony of others. There was no more emotion, only the crushing weight of vengeance in millions, billions, pair of eyes beyond numbering that looked pitilessly upon the eternity of her judgement and howled in a primal rage of satisfaction upon witnessing what they had dreamed of and yet were denied in life, and granted only now, only after it was all too late to matter any more; only after the death of everything that they had ever known.


	17. "You Mandos are a bunch of soft has beens compared to us Nova Blades.”

“Good Morning Princess-wanna-be-sith!” Tal’shanri awoke instantly sitting bolt right up as a wave of panicked force energy knocked the shouting Jen backward a few inches and sent multiple glasses from various precarious perches crashing to the floor with a cacophony of noise. Jen just flicked a fragment of glass from her armor and laughed uproariously. “You always wake up by breaking shit? Maybe there’s some Mando in you after all!”

“I—you—it—“ the dreams slipped away beyond a foreboding sense of the apocalypse and Tal’shanri shook her head slowly.

“Articulate today aren’t you? So have any dreams you want to tell me about?” Jen’s dark orange eyes were narrowed and leering and she was obviously smug about something. “Any /visions/?”

Tal’shanri nodded once, and then unsuccessfully tried to mumble something, only her mouth tasted like sandpaper and everything was fuzzy around the edges still. Water. Anything to wash the taste of tar from her mouth. There had been a glass of it on the table, but given that she had just shattered every breakable object in a five foot circle...

“Apocalypse.” She finally managed to stammer something through a mouth full of grit, and just saying the word helped. Stars the dream had felt so real. “We did it. Destroyed the galaxy. Neither of us got what we wanted in the end though.”

“Damn bottle must have started turned to turn then. It’s supposed to show you a vision of your heart’s desire.” Jen shrugged. “Would have been much more entertaining to listen to you babble uncontrollably about how in love with Lana you are then it was to have you whimpering like a newborn Kath Hound in the corner.” The bounty hunter snorted dismissively.

“We’re almost ready to head back to the mainland. Either be ready in ten or you can swim back.” Jen was gone in the blink of an eye, and Tal’shanri didn’t waste any time following after her. Ten minutes was probably more like three minutes, and it was not an idle threat that they would leave her behind. HK-53 had been deactivated and moved to a corner, but at least this time he’d been left standing. Reactivating him only to have to listen to him complain about how much he hated the ocean hardly sounded enjoyable, and Tal’shanri just force lifted the droid into a floating tow behind her.

She still barely made the last transport out, and the group of Mandos groaned as they had to shuffle around to make room for both her and her droid. “Where’s your lightsaber?” One of them group finally spoke up, “There’s a betting pool about it. Half the clan thinks you ‘aint a Jedi at all, that you’re one of Lana’s spies and Jen is exaggerating about you being some Jedi Legend.”

“It’s on my ship. I didn’t think it wise to carry my lightsaber in a town full of pirates.” The group exchanged skeptical glances. But Tal’shanri didn’t offer anything more and the rest of the hoverboat ride lapsed into an uneasy silence.

They pulled into a crowded cove, boardwalks lined with dozens of different species loading and unloading cargo from ships of all affiliations. Manaan might have been neutral territory, but Raider’s Cove was a true freeport. A handful of heavily armored guards in silver and navy accented armor wandered through the crowds, checking documents and looking menacing.

One of them, a whipid from the looks of the tusks protruding from just under his full face helmet, approached them and all eight of the Mandalorians reflexively gripped their weapons. Tal’shanri doubted that they had papers to have docked here. The guard seemed much more interested in her then in the Mandos, although they didn’t immediately take off once he had shouldered past them. “We had a deal with the Jedi Order,” the guard didn’t draw his weapon although his hand rested lightly on an electrostick. “Unfortunately it’s just been renegotiated and you’re going to have to come with me.”

“There’s no need for threats, I’ll come willingly.” The guard looked stunned, and the eight Mandalorians looked like they were considering starting a fight anyway.

“You weren’t supposed to agree,” the guard grimaced, “Margok won’t be pleased at how many witnesses we’ll have to pay off, but, you killed my brother and I intend to get revenge,” He flicked the electrostick out, eight blaster shots bouncing off his armor at the gesture, and Tal’shanri heard the low hum of his personal shield activating.

He laughed, although the sound was really more growl then laugh, “The Nova Blades have been dealing with Torch for years, we know all your Mando tricks. You Mandos are a bunch of soft has beens compared to us Blades.”


	18. “We have precious little time for reunions at the moment."

“You’ve never fought a Jedi before have you,” Tal’shanri didn’t move to draw her sword, even as the guard brandished his electrostick threateningly. “You can still surrender and walk away from this. There’s no need to throw your life away against an opponent you have no chance of defeating.”

The guard struck low with the electrostick, going for a hit on the gap most armor had just above the knees; only to find himself in a force hold with his body twisted awkwardly in a lunging position. His eyes flicked wildly around in panic. He couldn’t call for help, and any line of sight to another guard was blocked by the eight Mandalorians who had arrayed themselves in a semicircle and were watching with interest.

It would have been simple to just snap his neck and toss the body off the docks, or even simply just toss him over the edge and see if he could swim in all that armor. But, given that he had refused to surrender, he needed to suffer first. Somehow that felt like a good policy to adopt, yes, surrender or suffer. That was a good way to handle things from here on out. A small voice whispered in her mind, 'that's not the Jedi way, you know this is wrong', but Tal'shanri ignored it. Was she really even a Jedi anymore? Why should she care what they might think? This was much more pragmatic.

Tal’shanri closed her eyes for a moment, and used the force to see, locating the power source for the personal shield generator he was carrying. There was a sound of ripping metal as she used the force to pull the powerpack out, and a fizzling sound as his shield went silent. “Any of you want to answer for that insult?”

Eight Mandalorians laughed and drew their blasters. Tal’shanri turned back towards their hoverboat and dropped the force hold, leaving the Mandalorians to their fun.

“Reactivate HK unit.”

“Distressed Query: Master, why do you insist on deactivating me so often?! I cannot protect you that way!”

“Sorry HK. Mandalorians don’t like droids and wouldn’t hesitate to turn you into scrap metal. You’re too valuable for that.”

Tal’shanri stepped around a blood splatter and ignored the squealing whipid even as he shouted after her, “The Nova Blades will come for you! They won’t forget Gorro and Grumm!” Considering that four different guards had glanced over at the ruckus the Mandolorians were causing without intervening Tal’shanri really doubted that and she headed off into the crowd without another thought about the brothers.

Even on the narrow docks people gave way and let her pass unobstructed, although a fair portion of that seemed to be fear of anybody who could have acquired an HK droid. It almost seemed like she was going to manage to leave with no problem, but four guards lowered electostaves to block the final ramp that lead back to Raider’s Cove proper, although it was more the act of toll merchants and not overtly hostile. “Do you have an authorization for that droid?”

“I’m here on Jedi Council business, my permits should be a matter of record.” Two of the four guards shuffled nervously at that.

“Where’s your lightsaber then?” HK pointed his rifle at the guard with the audacity to ask that but didn’t shoot him, instead he looked toward Tal’shanri for a cue.

That question was rapidly becoming an annoyance. Was having a lightsaber all people thought it took to make somebody a Jedi? The flicker of annoyance woke the Sith Beast and even though she had wrapped the sword well to reduce the temptation to use it, it too whispered in her mind. It told her that it wouldn’t even take twenty seconds to drop all four guards, and that she would only need to kill one. There was a sense of placation in the offer — that one death was better than four, that there was a way to reduce how bad the confrontation could get, but only if she struck first.

“Her papers are just fine.” Tal’shanri recognized the voice immediately and didn’t even notice as all four guards lowered their weapons and stood in a slight daze.

“Lana—“

“We have precious little time for reunions at the moment. This place is about to become a shooting gallery, Theron’s been captured, and there’s a Jedi Knight wandering around who doesn’t seem amenable to talking. We need to get out of here before—"


	19. "Why do you care about one more death?”

Off in the distance there was an explosion that shook the whole town, a dust cloud billowing upwards as the crashed ship that had loomed on the horizon came crashing down. That seemed to have been a signal of some sort because immediately every Mandalorian on the docks started firing at the nearest guard. The lucky guards had personal shields under their armor, but the majority did not and were hit with dozens of blaster shots in the first ten seconds of total chaos.

“HK, protect Lana.”

There were two immediate objections to that, but Tal’shanri didn’t hear either over the migraine headache roar in her mind that she couldn’t keep running from battles. The Mandalorians didn't have a good counter to the Nova Blade’s under armor shielding, and even with their numbers as an advantage, it wouldn’t be a quick fight.

There was nowhere for any of the dock workers to run, and neither side looked like it cared about collateral casualties. But. She could stop this. It was clear in her mind; a perfect snapshot of flowing force moves that would take down the two dozen remaining shielded guards. She’d save enough civilians to be a hero again; clearly killing the guards was The Right Thing to do.

That a cursed sword and a creature made from Sith Alchemy might not be the best sources of advice didn’t even occur to Tal’shanri. She was gone in a blur of motion, leaving a disgruntled droid and an exasperated Sith Lord staring after her.

The sword cut through both armor and personal shields like they were not even there, blade edged with a blinding cyan force energy. The sword was still not a lightsaber, but it cut like one, and it felt almost like a heavier version of her duelsaber as she slashed two guards in the throat, the blade slipped just under the faceplates as they gurgled and immediately started to choke on their own blood.

Time slowed, and there was a clash in her mind where the Sith Beast wanted to slash with claws and rip with teeth and maul and rage and Kill; but then it gave ground to the idea that killing by cutting and slicing wasn’t antithetical to its existence. She killed two more guards, one with a slash across his stomach, the other with thrust to her shield generator that began to explode in freeze-frame distorted time.

Four more kills, each in rapid succession, a flow of cuts and jabs against nearly frozen figures as they were turning to look at the first two guards she had killed. They were defenseless against an enemy outside their ability to even perceive. There was a nagging thought that this was clearly more murder than strictly needed for the defense of civilians, and that the guards might have surrendered once they realized they were dealing with a Jedi. She pushed the thought down. No. This was a good thing. She was saving people – this was how to change course and avoid the apocalypse.

A pack of a half dozen guards were frozen mid flanking motion, defending what looked like some sort of system of control panels for the docks against a squad of Mandalorians who had drawn vibroblades and were midcharge. This time, she didn’t simply kill the guards; but sent a wave of orange force lightning towards the pack; and watching it zigzag towards them from the edge of sword was briefly transfixing. Jen was probably right about her needing to get Lana to teach her how to use Force Lighting.

But there were still more guards to deal with, and Tal’shanri leaped down to the lower docks. Four guards she simply knocked over the edge and into the water, making sure to send them far enough out that they couldn’t immediately grab the edge and pull themselves back up. Two more she slashed in the neck, three from behind, and the last guard she caught in a force hold as time returned to its normal flow.

Thirteen bodies clattered to the dock, four splashed into the ocean, and six screamed in agony as they were hit with lightning all in the same instant. It must have seemed to everybody watching that there was a small army of invisible assassins because the docks went silent in terror — except for the group of Mandalorians still fighting the guards at the control panel — as they waited to see if anybody else was going to mysteriously drop dead.

“Jen wins her bet.” There was an overawed tone from the woman speaking. “Several million credits when she collects from all of us.”

There’s a groan from several of Mandalorians who had finally figured out where they should be looking and seem to have come to the same conclusion. “What bet?" 

“For every shielded guard we killed before she and the rest of the clan could reinforce our position it was two-hundred thousand credits split between the survivors — but any guards not killed by us, we owe her.” The same woman answered.

“Incentive to not waste time with fighting droids or chasing after fleeing civilians,” a different Mandalorian walked over, one of the ones who had been charging the console. “You gonna kill that last one?” He pointed at the still frozen guard. “Or are you just showing off that we were all wrong about you being a Jedi?”

“I had hoped to leave one alive to send a message.” Tal’shanri glanced around, suddenly and uncomfortably aware of what this must look like to all the civilians watching.

The whole group of Mandos laughed at that. “Nobody left alive for you to send him back too. Only way to take over Raider’s Cove was to kill every last Nova Blade, and that right there is the last Nova Blade. Any we missed, well, they ain't Nova Blades any more if they’re smart.”

“I’m not going to kill a helpless prisoner—“ Tal’shanri looked at the clearly terrified guard, only to have the Mandalorian captain who had asked what her plan was stab the frozen man in the neck with a vibroknife. “—he was no threat to you!” Tal’shanri rounded on the captain who seemed surprised at her reaction.

“You just killed twenty-three guards in the space of two minutes, why do you care about one more death?”


	20. "We’ve been waiting for years for a Jedi to come and rescue us.”

“If it eases your conscious Master Jedi,” one of the dock workers nervously approached, a lanky Twi’leck man with scarred arms. “every last one of those guards were slavers. If you didn’t pay your docking fees, or didn’t have the right paperwork they hauled you off to their island.” He shuddered and rubbed his arms self-consciously. “Nobody here on Raiders Cove was powerful enough to stand up to the Nova Blades. We’ve been waiting for years for a Jedi to come and rescue us.”

“You should have put in a request to the Jedi Council, we would have put a stop to illegal slaving operations as soon as we—“

“I mean no disrespect Master Jedi, but a great many of your fellow knights have passed through over the years and done nothing for us. We had lost hope that the council would ever care about us.”

Tal’shanri didn’t have an immediate answer for that. Just how long had Master O’a been on Rishi and done nothing? Was it really possible that the Council had known and still chosen to not intervene? That wasn’t the Jedi way. It couldn’t be true! Could it?

“As Barsen’thor, Warden of the Jedi Order, I assure you the Council takes all allegations of slaving very seriously.” Her voice carried, even unamplified by the force, anytime she invoked her title like that she had the tendency to command attention with the weight and respect it demanded.

The Mandalorian captain stepped forward clearly intending to give a prepared speech, but Tal’shanri raised her hand and locked him in a force hold, ignoring the fact that the other Mandalorians looked displeased. “If you have any trouble with,” she glanced over her shoulder at the frozen captain and debated for a moment what to call the Mandalorian’s take over, “new management, do not hesitate to contact me. I did not free you from one set of slavers to have you suffer under another.”

She dropped the hold and the captain scowled at her, but, given the tacit endorsement in that statement he forced a smile before he addressed the crowd, outlining a grand vision for Raider’s Cove under Mandalorian management. Which really seemed to be a flat tax and then an anything goes ethos. Somehow Tal’shanri suspected there was a much more complicated plan at play here, but, what it was she doesn’t know – only that if Kal and Jen were involved, nothing was a simple as it seemed.

There was still the matter of what Lana had said too, that Theron had been captured. Tal’shanri slipped quietly away, cloaking herself in the force to avoid being stopped, and heading for the console she had seen earlier. The three Mandalorian guards made no attempt to stop her accessing it, and didn’t even react as she appears as if from nowhere. Unfortunately, technology was not her specialty and it didn’t take long before she found herself hopeless lost in menu screens.


	21. "The Revanites will be prepared against every conventional tactic we could throw at them.”

“You look like you could use some help,” Tal’shanri turned at the sound of a crisp Imperial accent to find a stockily built man with short cut silver hair and matching silver eyes had stunned all three guards with an electrostick and was simply leaning against the wall watching her with an amused smile. “Ba’shin. Imperial Intelligence.”

“Cipher Nine isn’t it? Your sister was on Makeb the same time I was leading the Republic’s evacuation effort.” If he were a threat she would have known. He certainly gave off an unsettling feel, but not a threatening one. “You really do look just like her.”

Ba’shin laughed and it was a dead on impersonation of his sister, “Ah yes, Makeb, I remember you now. You handed over the isotope five I needed in exchange for me not killing the sweet little governor who had spent all afternoon insulting you — and what was the name of that cute scientist you couldn’t keep from staring at? You were quite the topic of discussion among the Imperial support staff, we took bets on if you were going to end up flirting with her or not. Shame you’re such a good obedient little Jedi.” Ba’shin let the last sentence drip with complete sarcasm even as he managed a perfect impersonation of his sister.

Tal’shanri did a double take, completely positive that somehow it had to be the woman she’d briefly met on Makeb standing there. “Her name was Lemda, but, how—“

“Imperial Intelligence.” Ba’shin switched back to his own voice. “It always comes as such a shock to you Republic types just how much more competent than the SiS we are. Now, do you want my help or not?”

“Yes.” Tal’shanri sighed and stepped back from the terminal. “I’m looking for—“

“Theron Shan. I know. The thought that one of the only remotely competent agents the SiS has might owe me a favor was worth the risk of coming here.” It took Ba’shin only a few keystrokes to open the right file folder, and images of a large shipyard spread across the screen. His eyes narrowed and he looks concerned at what he was reading.

“They’ve been torturing him,” he scrolled through a massive text file, “Not to break him for information, but to convert him to their side. The Revanites want him bad. Imperial Intelligence would only put these sorts of resources into trying to flip a tiny handful of Top Republic Operatives, a list you were included until just recently on I might add.”

Ba’shin scrolled further down, reading faster than she could follow. “He’s being held on the Revanites main base, on an island about twenty clicks off the coast. Massive AA defenses and anti-stealth tech everywhere. Defended against massive scale and singular operative assaults — the Revanites have the advantage of knowing how both sides operate here. They’ll be prepared against every conventional tactic we could throw at them.”

He inserted a dataspike into the terminal a download progress bar popped up, “I’ll get a copy of this to what’s left of Imperial Intelligence, see if anybody I know has a better idea, and if any slicers can get into the encrypted files.” Ba’shin smiled and winks at her. “It always good to meet a Jedi whose first reaction isn’t to try and kill or control me.” He then pulled a datapad out of his jacket and typed something quickly before handing it to her, “I copied over the relevant files on the Revanite base and Theron’s location. May the Force be with you and all that, because you’re going to need it; and I need all the luck I can get to vanish again before that damn bounty hunter scalps me over the credits I allegedly owe her.” He winked one last time before vanishing.


	22. "Would it have not been more effective to let me do the killing for you?”

 Tal’shanri cloaked herself in the force again, and for a long moment simply focused on her breathing, slowing her pulse, and trying to find something of a moment of calm. Even from brief glances over the photos, Ba’shin’s assessment that the Revanites were prepared to deal with any type of conventional assault rang true. They had had the advantage of the expertise of both Darok and Arkous for months, if not longer, and quite possibly other high ranking military leader beyond those two.

A deception wouldn’t hold up against a large group of force users, and there wasn’t time to formulate any plan of great complexity. Maybe Lana would have something, or at least at option that was better than the low laughter in her mind from the Sith Beast. It was smugly confident that she would come around to the idea that the best solution was the easiest one — to tear through the camp and kill anybody in her way.

It was right, out of all the possible scenarios the Revanites could have planned for fighting a terror they couldn’t kill probably had never come up. That was not Plan A though. But that she was even considering it at all…

She made her way towards the safehouse Jen had described, conscious eased ever so slightly as she skirted clusters of celebrating dock workers and rowdy victorious Mandalorians. Getting rid of the Nova Blades seemed to have lifted an oppressive shadow from Raider’s Cove.

Tal’shanri didn’t decloak until she had passed through the front archway and into the building itself. Echoing down the hallway she could hear HK-53’s voice.

“Placating Comment: Mistress Beniko, I am sure that everything is perfectly fine. There is no need to—“ He stopped talking and the room ahead went silent, HK had almost certainly heard her footsteps.

She rounded the corner and almost walked straight into HK’s blaster rifle, the droid having positioned himself perfectly to ambush whoever the intruder was. “Perplexed Question: Master Tal’shanri why are you covered in blood? Would it have not been more effective to let me do the killing for you?”

The blood must have come from the first two guards she had stabbed in the throat before time had slowed, and covered was an exaggeration from the droid for sure; but, she glanced down at her armor for the first time and sure enough, there was considerable blood spatter. Killing with a lightsabers didn’t cause bleeding, and she was still not used to just how much blood was involved in stabbing people with a sword. Tal’shanri just sighed at HK who looked at her with a slight head tilt.

“Insufferable droid,” Lana stepped around the corner to glare at HK-53. “Go keep watch like I told you to.”

HK didn’t move and Tal’shanri could tell that the two of them hadn’t gotten along. “Condescending Statement: I only take orders from Master Tal’shanri, not Sith meatbags.”

“Do what she says from here on out,” Tal’shanri could hear the internal sigh from HK, even as he stomped off wordlessly. He would probably find some way to twist what Lana had meant by keep watch — but the order had gotten rid of him for the moment.

“I take it it went well then.” Lana raised her eyebrows ever so slightly at just how disheveled Tal’shanri looked. “Although, you should have considered who you were helping before you went and involved yourself in trying to be a hero. The Nova Blades were a known quantity, Jen’sul and her Mandalorians are,” Lana scowled at thought of the bounty hunter, “unpredictable.”

“They aren’t slavers though and—“

Lana grimaced, “We don’t have time to argue about slavery. Did you manage to access the Nova Blade’s database? We need to attempt to rescue Theron as quickly as possible, I’m afraid he has less time than I had thought.”

Tal’shanri handed over the Datapad, and Lana seemed upset over something almost immediately. “Cipher Nine was supposed to stay planetside in case we needed backup, he left a note saying they’ve both gone to rescue a friend.” She silently flicked through the rest of the file before rubbing her temples with a sigh. “This is all bad news.”


	23. “I never told Theron the truth."

“Ba’shin’s assessment that it’s a suicide mission may be right.” Lana turned on her heel and paced seven steps down the hallway seven steps back, cape fluttering behind her and not saying anything as she thought. “Could you make it through their defenses? Hypothetically I mean.”

“Yes.” Tal’shanri didn’t bother to qualify that statement. “But I know Theron would object. He would tell you that it’s not worth the damage it would do to The Order to have it get out that I’ve become a Sith Monster; once it’s public knowledge what’s happened to me—“ Tal’shanri trailed off.

Lana stopped pacing and looked at Tal’shanri for the first time since that final moment on Manaan, not just glancing at her as if she was simply any other person, but really focusing on her. “I never told Theron the truth about Manaan; he doesn’t know.” Lana gently reached for Tal’shanri’s hands, running her fingers softly along the grey streaks now there. “He knows I’ve been working on a project about Sith Alchemy, but, I told him it was simply academic. I don’t know that he entirely believed that of course,” she laughed softly and sadly, “but you’re right. He would object.”

The sound of heavily armored boots echoed from the entrance, breaking the moment. “Barsen’thor. I know you’re here.” Tal’shanri recognized the deep male voice instantly, and she tensed up, only just managing to keep from giving into the rage just under the surface. “The others on the council sent me here after you, and they didn’t specify that I had to bring you back alive.”

“Zan’narel.” She hissed the name and any lingering worries about how to rescue Theron were pushed from her mind replaced by a deep loathing of the Cathar. “I’ll deal with him. You were right about him — he kills Sith on sight, please, stay out of sight and let me see if I can talk him down first.” Tal’shanri knew it was a risk even to whisper to Lana, but, she couldn’t bring herself to simply murder the Knight in cold blood.

“I know there’s a Sith Lord here too, a very pretty one at that, such a shame that I’ll have to kill her.” Tal’shanri knew that he was trying to bait her. She knew that had always been how Zan’narel had done things, taunting people into rages then striking them down when they became clumsy. The Cathar knight had earned a reputation for brutality even on Tython, and had been sent on mission after mission hunting down the Children of the Emperor — never bringing any back alive either.

But maybe there was a way to turn Zan’narel into an advantage. Tal’shanri slipped her hands free of Lana’s grip and stepped around the corner casually, smiling at the knight, insincerely certainly, but enough of a gesture of ‘i’m on your side’ that he didn’t immediately attack. “The Sith Lord is gone. I’m sure you saw her assassin droid skulking about making sure she wasn’t followed.”

There was a terse silence where Zan’narel considered the possibility. “I did disable an assassin droid standing guard,” he didn’t lower his dark purple lightsaber but the intensity in his eyes dropped some. “And I saw what you did at the docks…” He seemed torn about if he believed her or not, but slowly lowered his lightsaber with an unhappy grumble.

“The Council needs you back on Tython immediately. Grand Master Satele wants you to transition away from being on the frontlines and towards being a political representative of The Council,” Zan’narel made it clear through his tone that he viewed this as a demotion for her. Maybe it was.

“I will return with you to Tython. After we rescue Grandmaster Satele’s son.” Tal’shanri kept her voice perfectly calm and level, and phrased it as a direct order instead of a request. She outranked him, and it would have been a dramatic breach of protocol for him to refuse a rescue mission.

“The Grandmaster is on her way to rescue him as we speak,” Zan’narel shrugged dismissively. “Her and half the Republic fleet will be here in less than 24 hours, Theron can hold out that long. I have better things to do than chase down your idiot spy boyfriend.”

Tal’shanri’s composure slipped for just an instant, “You shouldn’t be reading trashy tabloids as a Jedi.”

“Are you denying all of it?” Zan’narel’s voice inflected just enough to warn her that it was a loaded question and either way he was going to twist her words. “You really should read what the press has been saying about you Barsen’thor — not all of it is as unbelievable as you might think.”

Doubt crossed her mind and evidently her face too because Zan’narel laughed predatorily. “Maybe I do have time to rescue Theron, if only to be able to swear before the Jedi Council that you really do deserve your demotion to political representative over your ‘relationship’ with the Grand Master’s son.” He rolled the word relationship into a seductive purr and bared his fangs at her mockingly as he watched her squirm and keep her temper under control.  

After that last taunt, however, Tal’shanri no longer had any impulse to simply attack Zan’narel in response to his provocations. Simply killing him would be too easy, too quick a death for somebody who incorrectly assumed he was her equal. He needed to pay a proper price for his insolence, one that would have him understand just have grave an error he had made. Again, the small voice in the back of her mind, ‘That’s not the Jedi way, there is no emotion there is peace.’ She didn't listen, but she didn’t push it way this time either, and instead focused on staying in control.

“If a demotion to a political representative is what it takes to save my friend, it’s a price I’m willing to pay.” There was so much of the old Tal’shanri in that statement, so much of the woman who had earned the title of Barsen’thor through defending against the dark side no matter the cost, that the words rang with a confidence and power that startled Zan’narel.

Still off balance from the gravity and command presence in that statement Zan’narel stammered slightly as he said, “Lead the way then.”

 


	24. “What will you be doing? Joining the Imperials?”

Zan’narel didn’t question why the group of Mandalorians down at the docks so easily gave up two speeders, but as soon as they landed on the island he started to badger her again about Theron. Rather than reply, Tal’shanri set a dead sprint of a pace that forced him into silence. Normally the Cathar Knight would have been able to out sprint her. He was two inches taller and powerfully built, but he didn’t use the force to boost his speed like she did, instead relying on his own physical prowess to keep up.

A weakness of his certainly. She could see it now, a sloppy step here and there, the way he landed heavily with long bounding strides, his ever so slightly delayed reflexes against tree branches, a hundred indicators of how he would fight were revealed as they raced through the jungle. He hated the water — not surprising for a Cathar — but his distaste extended into wasted feats like leaping four times across a preciously small set of rocks, while she simply waded through the ankle deep stream.

The datapad had marked a hydroelectric power plant as the best place to possibly strike first, and they kept to the river heading towards the Revanite camp. Tal’shanri would have preferred to use stealth while on approach, but given Zan’narel’s inexperience with force cloaking that wasn’t an option. They would just have to move fast. There were fewer guards then she had expected along the water route, and they slipped unnoticed under a heavily guarded bridge-gate and alongside a steep cliff before they vaulted silently over a wooden wall and into the generator area.

Zan’narel immediately charged at the pack of six guards, swinging his lightsaber in what looked to Tal’shanri like an almost random pattern. Certainly no form she had ever seen before. None of these guards seemed to have been force users, only mercs with blasters. There was a big red button labeled emergency shut off — and Tal’shanri pressed it before Zan’narel could stop her. All around them the lights went out across the camp, but the campsite set up was primitive enough that loss of power doesn’t cause total panic. Other than the electric lighting and scattering of security cameras, it didn’t seem like the generator had been powering much at all. So why had Ba’shin marked this as the best starting point for a raid on the base?

Strangely the emergency shut off didn’t trigger an alarm. The Republic and Imperial technologies didn’t seem to have interfaced seamlessly and the result was a series of red flashing lights, but no general call alarm. Good. That glitch gave them an advantage they sorely needed – the chance to scout the camp under at least some cover of partial darkness.   


Even though they were supposed to be working together under the banner of the Revenites the Imperial and Republic forces had stayed separate. Which gave Tal’shanri an idea. “Change into one of the dead guard’s uniforms and sneak into the Republic Officers tent. Convince them there that the Imperials are planning as assassination attempt and that The Republic forces need to be ready to defend themselves.” Zan’narel immediately rolled his eyes at her plan.

“What will you be doing? Joining the Imperials?” He scoffed and crossed his arms.

“I’m going to go kill just enough Imperials to set their side of the base on high alert and have them increase patrols. If we can get both sides to fight each other we have much better chance to getting all the way to the main complex.”

“No. You negotiate. I’ll kill Imperials.”

“I would, but I don’t think I’d blend in among the Republic,” There was simply no way she wouldn’t have immediately attracted attention and suspicion trying to pass herself off as fitting in. Even as Barsen’thor she had met plenty of trained soldiers who had refused to work under her command. She never pressed the issue, preferring to let her actions speak for themselves, but she understood full well there would always be a sizable minority in the Republic that would never see past her being a Chiss.

Zan’narel softened ever so slightly and grunted. “I wasn’t thinking about that. People see my lightsaber and they don’t care what I look like. I’m sorry it's not like that for you.” Every last one of those sentences pained him to say. It wasn’t an apology, so much as he was admitting he understood. He turned and eyed the bodies of the guards, and selected a Republic uniform that was still mostly intact with only a single hole in the side.

“You’d better actually kill some Imperials for me.” He growled at her while also trying to wedge his robes under a uniform that had probably been a size too small to start with. “Kill at least twenty five. More than you killed at the docks because I would have had to beat your count.”

He looked awkward, but it should work. Hopefully. “May the Force be with you Zan’narel.”

“Make sure it’s at least twenty-five.” He gave her a narrow eyed stare for emphasis before walking off into the Republic camp without repeating the traditional goodbye.                        



	25. At least this disguise didn’t come with an obnoxious vocal modulator.

Tal’shanri almost felt bad about her real plan to double cross Zan’narel. Almost. The deception would have been considerably easier with Ba’shin on the comm to keep her from making any i’m-a-jedi-not-a-spy mistakes about rank or mannerisms. But, hopefully, she could manage to pass herself off as an Imperial simply by virtue of obviously not being with the Republic. She also had the advantage that one of the Imperial guards had been her height and weight and his uniform fit surprisingly well. It was covered in blood of course.

But Tal’shanri had been covered in blood for the better part of the last two days straight and couldn’t bring herself to care about the dark splatter marks. The light weight uniform wasn’t much in the way of armor; although at least this disguise didn’t come with an obnoxious vocal modulator.

She walked into the Imperial side of the camp and nobody gave her a second glance. It was a strange feeling to not be cloaked and yet be invisible. Her whole life had been in the spotlight — being the only Chiss among the Jedi Order for years had always made conspicuously different even from a young age.

Her initial plan had been to simply walk into the Officer’s tent and pass along information that the Republic Revanites were in contact with the Jedi Council and not loyal to the cause and let paranoia start from there; but, the more Tal’shanri thought about it, the more she realized she might have something that was better and more likely to get immediate action.

She switched into a jog, moving fast enough to appear hurried yet not panicked, as she approached the large tent in the middle of the camp. The electricity was still out, although a backup generator was humming and keeping the lights on. Two guards in heavy armor glanced her way and she called out “I have an urgent message from Lord Divranus.”

They moved aside with no hesitation and let her pass. Inside the tent there was a table with six Sith Lords seated around it all looking bored. Only one of them seemed to radiate any particular power and he looked up at her immediately as she walked in. “My Lord, I have an urgent message from Lord Divranus.”

Lord Ivress narrowed his eyes and inclined his head slightly giving her permission to speak. “Base security has been compromised. When the Nova Blades were wiped out by the Mandalorians, one of their databanks was compromised by Cipher Nine—“ Tal’shanri knew immediately that she had been right about changing tactics as the name got a drastic reaction out of the Sith Lords.

“Alert the main camp to prepare anti-stealth defenses,” Ivress snapped at two of the other Sith who reluctantly obeyed. “Now.” Lightning crackled between his fingertips and at that the entire room burst into a flurry of motion.

Ivress approached her, hand on his saber, as he stared at her intently. Tal’shanri was sure for a second that she had been found out, but he only scowled at her as he waited for her to finish delivering the report. “My Lord, Cipher Nine was seen aiding a member of the Jedi Council.” The Sith grimaced at that, and yet he still seemed distracted by something else.

“How do you know such much about what Cipher Nine has been up to? There’s something not right about you, something familiar… But no… You couldn’t be…”

Tal’shanri was saved having to answer as a breathless scout ran in, “The Republic Forces are gathering, and, and, there’s a Cathar announcing that he’s with the Jedi Council and that anybody who follows him and helps wipe us out will get full immunity when they return home to the Republic. My Lord! He’s gathered quite the army!”

Ivress radiated rage at that and the scout took four steps backward fearfully. “Good. We’ll have the chance to wipe out all the traitors among the Republic Revanites at once. Prepare a counter attack.”


	26. "I have the Baresen’thor in custody for you.”

 “You.” Ivress pointed at Tal’shanri. “Come with me.” She followed the Sith Lord as he headed farther into the camp. They passed four different guard stations with anti-stealth and anti-personal defenses, each a barbed wire micro-fortress that would have been exhausting to have tried to bypass offensively.

The camp was in a state of controlled chaos as soldiers formed up into ranks and a jumble of Sith started to flow together into a fighting force. Ivress was still the most powerful Sith she had seen so far, and the appeal of the Revanites began to make more sense to Tal’shanri. Even about the Jedi there was social stratification based on force ability. Less so then among the Sith, but it was obvious that none of these Sith could have ever hoped to be more than foot soldiers for moderately powerful Sith Lords, who were themselves in thrall to others.

The closer they got towards the far edge of the camp, however, the more powerful the force users grew; and the more mixed the group became. Tal’shanri started to recognize a few faces from among the ex-Jedi, and kept her eyes low to the ground to keep from being recognized in return.

What had motivated so many former Jedi to defect? It was a stunned outraged question at first, but it slowly settled in her mind that that was the wrong question to be asking — the real question was what had motivated them to follow Revan in the first place? What were both sides missing that there were easily over a thousand soldiers between the two camps, and hundreds of force users.

“Wait here.” Ivress pointed to a spot just outside a tent that seemed almost like any other tent they had passed by, and Tal’shanri complied silently. On second glance however, the tent was lined with beskar weave, and as soon as Ivress passed inside, she couldn’t sense him at all anymore. There was a dim glow of a personal shield from underneath too — even a direct airstrike wouldn’t have caused more than superficial damage. Clever. The Imperials would hide their Commander’s tent among the regular men.

The minutes ticked by, and lapsed into almost an hour of waiting before Ivress stepped out of the tent followed by a portly man in a full face mask. “As I told you Dark Lord Baras, I have the Baresen’thor in custody for you.”

Baras grabbed Tal’shanri in a force choke, and she didn’t try to resist. Baras was dark council. Or, former, dark council at least, and she knew resisting would only provoke his temper. “This isn’t the Barsen’thor you idiot.” Baras knew full well who she was, what was he playing at lying? “A spy yes. I sense deception in her. But not the Barsen’thor.” Baras’s tone was not quite resigned, not quite bitter, more simply so burned up from a lifetime of rage he couldn’t bring himself to find the energy it takes any more. “Take the afternoon and torture her, find out what you can, then kill her.” Baras turned back to his tent.

“And apprentice, if you ever bother me again for something so trivial…” Baras let the threat hang and Ivress bowed low to the ground.

“My apologies Dark Lord Baras.” Baras gave the tiniest nod of dismissal and Lord Ivress picked up the stun from where Baras had left her hanging midair and simply dragged her along behind him the rest of the journey to the main hanger bay.

This hadn’t exactly gone according to plan; but, even if it wasn’t how she had figured on getting to the right place, everything had all worked out in the end somehow. Ivress keyed in a twenty-seven digit code to open a set of massive blast doors and they entered the hanger turned temporary prison at last.


	27. "I can kill Theron Shan and know that you’ll suffer grief like I have!”

There was nobody else in the main hallway, and now that they were alone Tal’shanri broke Ivress’s force hold with a single thought. She dropped to the floor with a thud as the Sith Lord slowly turned around. “I shouldn’t have doubted, I knew I recognized you. You killed the man I loved,” Ivress smiled ruefully at her, shaking his head at his own doubt. “The day you killed Lord Cestus was the day I joined the Revanites in hopes that I would one day get my revenge.”

Tal’shanri started to say that she had given Cestus the change to surrender, but instead a sharp edged high pitched voice echoed across the room, “Tell me where Theron Shan is. I’m done playing this silly game.” The sword on her back was burning hot, the temperature contrast only noticeable now that she was in an air-conditioned room and out of Rishi’s oppressive heat. “I won’t ask twice.”

The Sith Beast was there too, but simply in the back of her mind. It paced back and forth, roaming her consciousness and waiting for the spark of rage that would let it lose again. Tal’shanri almost doesn’t notice it at all anymore, she had grown used to it being there. It still burned and seethed and clawed at the edges of her mind from time to time, but there was a symbiosis now that hadn’t been there at the start. They were learning from each other and it now knew when to wait — and when a low hiss in her mind might push her over the edge.

Ivress spat in her direction. “I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew.” He drew his saber and closed his eyes for a moment, channeling rage and grief. He leaped at her recklessly although Tal’shanri didn’t even draw her weapon simply stepping out of the way and letting him crash into the concrete floor.

He got back up, eyes blazing with rage. “Fight me you coward!” This time he sent a blast of lightning at her, and kept at it even as Tal’shanri deflected it with a simple flick of her hand, and sent the blast harmlessly toward the ceiling.

“You know you can’t beat me. You can still surrender and live.” Tal’shanri waited until Ivress had stopped channeling, his chest heaving from exertion, and this time it was her own voice although the sword was scalding hot against her back and screaming in her mind for blood. “I gave Lord Cestus—“

Ivress snarled at the name and tried lightning again but it was pointless. “You’re right, I can’t beat you. But I can kill Theron Shan and know that you’ll suffer grief like I have!”

The Sith sprinted off down the hallway and Tal’shanri gave him a thirty second head start then followed after him.

 


	28. "You get to dress up as the Sith this time."

Suddenly the sound of blaster fire echoed from the room ahead, along with a voice Tal’shanri would have recognized anywhere. Theron. Ivress was using everything he had to run at a full force assisted sprint and impressively managed to just ahead of Tal’shanri. They both charged into a large open room; notable for the massive hologram of Revan looming over everything and slowly spinning in a circle. Theron was valiantly fighting off several rejected prototype HK units and didn’t even glance over, just as well because his being distracted even for a moment would have given the droids an opening.

Ivress raised his hands to grab Theron in a force choke and let the droids finish him off, but the force fizzled out. Sprinting ahead of her had taken every last bit of force energy he had had. He still had a lightsaber however, and Ivress leaped towards Theron, only to have Tal’shanri knock the Sith’s leap sideways and send him crashing into the HK knockoffs. Theron glanced over for a split second to see who had come to his aid then fired indiscriminately into the pile until neither droids nor Ivress moved anymore.

“Please tell me you brought a whole army right behind you,” Theron’s breathing was heavy from the fight. “We have to stop the Republic fleet from jumping out of hyperspace into a trap.”

“Slow down, what trap?”

“I don’t have time to explain it all right now,” Theron glanced at the huge hologram of Revan. “But unless The Force works in some Very Mysterious Ways, we have a Revan imposter on our hands who in less than 24 hours will have wiped out a huge chunk of both the Republic and Imperial fleets.”

“Zan’narel mentioned—“

“Shit.” Theron interjected. “Sorry, but, he was on the list of saboteurs Lana and I had discovered. The one I got captured making sure she got away with.”

“That might be a problem then. He’s also our best hope of getting out of here alive.”

“So it was too much to hope for that you showing up dressed in an Imperial Officer’s uniform meant you had an escape plan then.”

There was a moment when Tal’shanri considered his point, she was still disguised, and they did rather conveniently now have an outfit Theron might be able to salvage. “You wanna try the Lord Divranus bit again?”

Theron stared at Tal’shanri like she had gone crazy. “That won’t work without the face mask. There are no—“

Tal’shanri grinned at Theron, “Not me. You get to dress up as the Sith this time. You’re the same size as Ivress was.”

“No. No way. I am not dressing up as a Sith Lord.”


	29. “The plan is only suicidal if your terrible acting skills make it so.”

“I’ll have you know I am doing this because it’s the only way to save the Republic.” Theron actually made for a more than passable Sith Lord. The scowl positively completed the look.

“We don’t have time to argue. You said it yourself. We have to knock out the signal jammer before the fleets arrive and the best way to do that is to steal a ship and get from this secret base to the next secret base as fast as possible.” That number of times that she had raided one secret lair only to find there was another, bigger; secret lair full of even more Sith to fight pretty much summed up her entire career as Barsen’thor. She almost expected it at this point.

Theron didn’t have a counter-point and just scowled even more. “Won’t the other Sith be able to sense thag I don’t have their talent?”

Tal’shanri handed him her sword and Theron recoiled and dropped it immediately, it was scalding to the touch. “Ouch!”

“Sorry,” She picked it up and affixed it to his back instead. “It’s a rather temperamental dark side relic I acquired. Carrying it will mask your lack of force sensitivity.”

The Sith Beast in her mind laughed and approved. Tal’shanri was almost surprised Theron couldn’t hear the sword’s rage. It had spoken to Jen after all, it was certainly capable of making itself heard when it wanted to. She did offer it some placation, there would be plenty of killing on the next island. Theron seemed more and more uncomfortable about the whole plan, but given that he didn’t have a better one, he didn’t say anything in protest just fiddled with the robe for the umpteenth time.

“So, should I do my best Lana impersonation to distract any Sith we meet?” Theron managed to make the same swinging-hips-cape-swish motion that Lana had done on Mannan (and that Tal’shanri had noticed every time and did in fact find particularly distracting) and she had to keep from rolling her eyes at the sight of Theron’s butt in Ivress’s tight pants. “Lighten up Tal’shanri. We’re about to attempt a suicidal escape plan, the least you could do is at least pretend to admire my ass.”

She gave up and rolled her eyes. “The plan is only suicidal if your terrible acting skills make it so.”

Theron looked offended. “Five hundred credits that I make an excellent Sith Lord and nobody stops us.”

“Deal. Although, if you lose we’ll be both be dead shortly thereafter so it hardly seems like a fair bet.” They both laughed at that.

Theron squared his shoulders they headed back toward the entrance, and Tal’shanri was careful to stay right on his heels just in case anything did end up going wrong. There passed several guards in the hallway who ducked to the side as Theron stalked imperiously past them. Good. No obvious flaws then.

The hanger door didn’t need a code to open from the inside — although Theron could have sliced it easily enough — and nobody stopped them as they headed towards the small craft landing pads. A few Sith glanced their way, but the real problem was how many Republic officers and Jedi kept doing double-takes and trying to get a better look at them.

The two of them had been all over the tabloids for months. Even disguised, there was still just enough of a resemblance to make people pause. Theron picked up the pace, trying to avoid running while also not giving people long enough to get a second glance in.

Miraculously the disguise held and Theron had managed to slice the controls for a tiny two person shuttle, and was priming the engines when Dark Lord Baras appeared again. He didn’t draw his saber or even challenge them, just calmly and slowly walked over, making no threatening motions beyond using the force to hold the shuttle in place.


	30. Telling Theron the truth would come with a terrible cost.

Theron twitched and gripped his blaster. “I’m here to switch sides,” Baras ignored Theron and stared at Tal’shanri through his mask. “Revan is insane. I thought if I bided my time my former apprentice would show up and I’d get a second chance to kill him.” And in that Baras radiated waves of pure hate and rage that even Theron could feel.

“But, I miscalculated the incompetence of the current Dark Council. They’re about to jump into the trap I know you’re headed to stop. Normally, I’d let them all burn for banishing me!” Baras’s voice grew louder and louder and the masked Sith had to take a breath to calm down slightly. “But, I understand that you and the bounty hunter Jen’sul are allies now — and that woman has never made a bad bet in her life.” Baras almost sounded impressed. “Whatever is coming, I want on her side."

“Take my personal access codes, inputting them into the mainframe terminal will grant you full systems access.” Tal’shanri stared in total shock. “Whatever you’re planning with her, once Revan is good and dead, come find me. I might be disgraced from the Dark Council, but I still have allies in places not even Jen’sul can go.”

Baras turned to leave. “Shame you killed Ivress,” He acknowledged Theron for the first time with that remark, “He was a fine apprentice. No matter. I’ll find another.” He released the shuttle and clanked away.

Theron pulled the shuttle up, and punched the accelerator with more power than he needed to as they sped towards the second Revanite base in silence.

“Do you wanna call that bet a draw?” Theron finally asked after a solid fifteen minutes of awkward silence. “I mean, technically I did win, I was in the shuttle before we got stopped.”

Tal’shanri laughed at the absurdity that they were having this conversation at all. “No, you did win. I’ll pay up.”

The laugh broke the tension and Theron leaned back in the pilot's chair, putting his feet on the console. “It really is good to see you again Tal’shanri. I just wish it were under better circumstances.”

“Me too.”

“You know what, I’m just going to come out and say it,” Theron was obviously resigned to this conversation going poorly before he had even started it, “You’ve changed. Carrying around Dark Side relics? Working with Zan’narel and Jen’sul? Darth Baras? What am I supposed to think of this?”

“It’s. Complicated.” Tal’shanri knew he was right. “If it makes you feel any better Jen stabbed me and then poisoned me twice in the same day. I didn’t exactly get any say about if I wanted her as an ally or not. And Zan’narel found the safehouse, it was either ally with him or kill him.”

Theron mulled it over. “Alright, but, tell me the truth. Why is Lana researching Sith Alchemy? I know it has something to do with you, and I suspect I’d much rather hear it from you now then find out later.”

A long silence followed his question and the outline of the island appeared on the horizon.

Telling Theron the truth would come with a terrible cost, and yet there was the nagging voice of her conscious telling her that she needed to tell him NOW. The urgency was strange, and a sense of foreboding settled over her about what it could mean. There were no good options here. Hazy Memories of a dream she had forgotten tugged at her mind; pulling her thoughts a dozen different directions.

What she said to Theron here and now, it wasn’t exactly the fate of the galaxy hinging on it, but, it was a choice that would set her path, would chisel into stone the first step on a longer path of destiny, as neither truth nor lie were something she could take back once spoken. “I—“


	31. "We have less than two hours before the rest of the fleet catches up to those scout ships.”

The shuttle lurched sideways cutting off Tal’shanri’s answer as Theron narrowly avoided a blast from AA defenses — a second turret popped up from the landscape and then a third and fourth. Even a pilot as capable as Theron couldn’t hope to dodge a dozen canons all targeting the same ship at once. He throttled the shuttle into a near vertical ascent, rolling the ship as he did so to turn back around; then he cut the power completely and let the ship drop about 100 feet in freefall to lose the last of the heat sealing missiles; and only just reactivated the engines in time to avoid them splashing down into the ocean.

They still skipped across the surface of the water twice, nine alarms going off all at once as the shields dropped from 100% to 22% from the force of the impact. That Theron managed to keep the shuttle from sinking long enough for them to hit a coral bar about fifty yards from shore was a feat of pure nerve and skill. “They’re going to send fighters to make sure our ship was destroyed, we need to move, now!”

This was Theron’s element, not hers, and Tal’shanri followed his lead, unclipping her safety harness and diving into the water after him. Luckily it wasn’t much of a swim — the breaker waves more or less tossed them both onto the sand before either could really start to do much more than tread water. “Your uniform jacket, take it off and use it to wipe our footprints, we need to get off the beach before they spot us.” Theron was already scanning the beach, looking for somewhere along the foliage lined cliffs that might work to hide, and he quickly pointed at a small cluster of fronds that looked like they would render them invisible from the air.

Off in the distance, and above the sound of the waves and jungle, Tal’shanri could hear the high pitched engine whine of two small fighters on approach; and she didn’t bother to tell Theron that she wasn’t  wearing the whole uniform – just the jacket over an undershirt – given that the whole thing was soaked and practically see-through anyway.

She pulled the jacket off and dragged it across the sand behind her to hide their tracks. Even moving at a run, she only just managed to make it out of sight before two small ships circled overhead; one firing at the crashed ship on the tiny atoll, the other buzzing the waves with laser fire. Had it not been for Theron’s quick thinking they probably wouldn’t have survived.

“Why’d they shoot at us? We had access codes, and I don’t think Darth Baras set us up. Did you see any sign that a former Jedi might have gotten a second glance and called it in?” Theron’s eyes were still on the sky as he shook his head at Tal'shanri's question; but it wasn’t the two small ships he was staring at. It the upper atmosphere there were now a dozen midsized fast scout ships all shooting at each other.

“Those were automated defenses. Probably left over from back before the Revanites took over the island. Venting heat in a dead drop only works against older systems — I’ve seen setups like that on slavers' havens across the galaxy.” Theron looked at her, soaking wet and wearing almost nothing, stared for a second too long and then looked in a completely different direction, cheeks flushed slightly. “They, uh,” he had to take a second to recover his train of thought. “The uh, Revanites couldn’t have built a fleet so fast any other way then by slave labor. I know it’s the Jedi way to want to rescue those in trouble, but,” he pointed skyward, “we have less than two hours before the rest of the fleet catches up to those scout ships.”


	32. “Right, Jedi nonsense later then."

“So, we need to disable that jammer as fast as possible then.” Tal’shanri shook the majority of the sand off the officer’s jacket and put it back on. It was still wet, and now it was itchy, but the sun was already burning her shoulders. “We’re both trained for this sort of thing,” she put a hand on Theron’s shoulder and smiled reassuringly at him. “Let’s go.”

Theron nodded, slowly, then a second time with more confidence. “I managed to hang into Ivress’s lightsaber, I know it’s not your normal style, but—“ Theron extended the weapon to her, and looked slightly hurt as Tal’shanri took four rapid steps backwards. “Hey, I know Jedi have weird hang-ups about lightsabers, but, I’m not about to tell anybody you had to borrow a Sith saber.”

“I appreciate it, but—“

“Look, now is not the time for some stupid Jedi Order nonsense about—“

“—it’s not Jedi Order nonsense—“

“What is it then?!” Theron’s voice was level but icy and frustrated, “We need to move, now. Just take the lightsaber and you can decide rather or not you—“

“I’m not trying to be difficult. I literally can’t take it from you,” Tal’shanri reached for the saber to prove her point and it started to spark alarmingly before she was anywhere near close enough to grab it. Theron’s eyes widened and he dropped the saber and scrambled backwards frantically as it shrieked and heated up; the case turning a dull red color before half melting and exposing the kyber crystal within. Unlike the other sabers, this one exploded with a targeted blast in Tal’shanri’s direction that melted all the nearby sand into a river of glass.

Even shielded, and throwing every bit of force energy she had into the shield, the blast knocked Tal’shanri flying sideways like she was little more than a rag doll, the energy beam stretching all the way to the ocean where for two or three seconds it turned the waves into steam and left behind a dark black scar in the along ocean floor.

Theron stared at the lump of slag that had been a lightsaber and kept staring even as Tal’shanri walked back over, shaking even more sand off herself as she did so. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would do that.  Ever since Manaan I haven’t been able to use a lightsaber without it going haywire, and I’m not entirely sure what’s causing it. I’ve been using a sword until I can return to Tython and figure out what could be wrong. Mostly they just die in my hands, I wasn’t expected it to explode like that.” Theron nodded and handed her the sword from where it was secured to his back.

“Did something happen on Manaan? It seems odd that lightsabers would just start exploding around you.” Theron looked at her, and it was clear he was worried about her. “Let’s just save the day and we can deal with Jedi nonsense afterwards.”

“Right, Jedi nonsense later then. So, is your stealth generator working?” And mercifully, Theron vanished from sight on command.

“I know one day I’d get my credits out of getting the waterproof upgrade,” Theron laughed, and while there was an edge to it, Tal’shanri laughed with him at the throwaway comment. They both needed that. “I’ll lead,” Tal’shanri rolled her eyes, cloaking herself in the force just after she heard Theron’s huff.

Part of her wanted to try and read his emotions, but, she had never picked up on even background emotions from him before. His implants were probably designed to block that sort of thing, and she simply followed him as they made their way along a trail through the jungle. Calling the path a trail was generous, but it was more than simply animal tracks and it opened up into a massive clearing after about a quarter mile.

Dozens of masked Revanites were patrolling around the encampment of several hundred slaves all divided into groups, with each group occupied with some part of the process of refining exonium into ingots. Stacks and stacks of supply crates filled with exonium were in the center of the clearing, where a massive crane was loading them onto some sort of transport. “This must be the source of their funding,” Theron whispered. “Lana and I could never figure out where the Revanites were getting the money for so many ships; but, of course the extra exonium had to be coming from somewhere!”

“Extra exonium? I’d never even heard of exonium before coming to Rishi.”

“I’m not surprised. Exonium’s main use is that it has extremely high resistance to vibration — there was only ever a niche need for it in the powercores of capital ships before isotope-five came along. Now any ship that gets retrofitted with an isotope-five upgrade also has to be refitted with an exonium lined containment core.”

“How much would it set the Revanites back to destroy that stockpile?” There was a thirty second pause where Theron didn’t answer. “Not enough to justify not destroying the jammer in time, let’s keep moving.”


	33. “You—you can ‘handle’ a wookie with a flamethrower and a jetpack just like that?”

They continued on with scouting the area, and Tal’shanri only just managed to keep from letting herself get angry enough to wake the Sith beast in her mind. Saving the Republic Fleet felt like a hollow victory when it was Republic negligence that had allowed this to happen in the first place. Even though she knew that was not entirely true — The Empire probably had more defectors among the Revanites and the real blame of course lay with Revan — but it was hard not to feel defeated by what she was seeing all around her.

Had the Jedi Council stepped in and stopped the Nova Blades years ago – when they were small it would have been easy – would this really have happened? How many more places like this island were there? Theron had mentioned being familiar with the type of defensive system — that meant this wasn’t the only place where slavery was flourishing unchecked. So, why had she been sent to deal with Jawas and Sand People when she could have prevented this from happening?

Tal’shanri knew, of course, that none of this was her fault; so why then did she feel responsible? The thought swirled in her mind and she only half paid attention to following Theron, barely noticing that they had started heading up a rocky slope and that they were skirting more and more fences until Theron stopped abruptly and Tal’shanri nearly walked into him. “We’ve walked the whole perimeter, and I only saw one way through the fence. Did you see another?”

“No.” Not that she had been looking, but, she trusted Theron’s assessment. “And it looked like security wiring throughout. We can’t simply cut our way through without triggering all sorts of perimeter alarms and a base lockdown.”

Theron sighed, “Are you sure we couldn’t try cutting the fence? There’s a stealth field jammer over the gate, and the wookie pacing back and forth on guard duty is wearing a jetpack and carrying a flame thrower. And while you might be immune from explosions, I am not.”

Tal’shanri laughed at that, and kept laughing as she glanced up towards the gate and saw that his description of a wookie with a jetpack was real and not an exaggeration. “I can handle this. Just wait here.”

“You—you can ‘handle’ a wookie with a flamethrower and a jetpack just like that?” Theron’s voice gave Tal’shanri a clue to what was probably a dubious eyebrow raised expression. “I’m gladder every day I didn’t end force sensitive. You Jedi really do have a collective death wish.”

“One wookie can’t be worse than that huge droid on Korriban. I’ll be fine.”

Theron made a sound at that that was pure frustration. “Now I have to come with you. You should have never been alone on Korriban — Darok deserved what you did to him for making that call.”

“What—“

“Satele told me.” Theron said it simply although the statement was anything but. “She doesn’t tell me much,” there was a bittersweet ruefulness to his voice that was more unguarded than Tal’shanri had ever heard from him before, “almost nothing about Jedi business, but, she is still my mother.”

“She worries. More about you then about me if you can believe that.” Theron sighed softly, “Even deep undercover with all the false trails Lana and I left, she managed to contact me — and all she really wanted to know is if we had become “involved”. Only after I told her no did she tell me that there was evidence you had been involved in whatever happened to Darok.”

“I would have told her, and you, the truth if anybody had bothered to ask me what happened.” There was a sharp edged defensiveness in Tal’shanri’s voice and the sword glowed orange in her hands, not enough to break the cloak, but a warning sign that she was letting her control slip. “Three months on Manaan and the only visitor from The Order was Nadia.”

Theron took a step back at the anger in her voice. “ Look, I’m not The Order. I wouldn’t have left you so long if I’d had a choice. Can we just, get through this? Please? I can’t do anything to fix any of that while we’re racing against the clock on a backwater planet that I kriffing hate and cannot wait to leave and never think of again.” He was angry. Trying not to shout angry. Angry on her behalf, angry about a long list of things that Tal’shanri sensed at once, despite the fact that he was still trying to avoid letting her read his emotions.

There was something else there too, a feeling that he didn’t bury quite quickly enough to keep her from sensing it, despite the fact that Theron pulled himself back together almost immediately. Much as he kept trying not to think about it, trying not to dwell on something he knew was little more than an indulgent fantasy, he still held onto to the memory of the kiss that wasn’t — but an expanded fantasy memory of how he imagined it should have gone.

It was a surprisingly strong memory for being of something that never actually happened, and Tal’shanri was glad they were both still invisible because even just a glimpse at what he had been thinking made her blush.

“I’ll disable the wookie’s flamethrower before he can prime it,” Tal’shanri simply changed the subject. “That should mean that as long as you keep at range you should be ok.”

“I’d really feel better if the heart of this plan didn’t involve you fighting a wookie with a sword.”

Tal’shanri didn’t reply. He would see soon enough that it wasn’t an ordinary sword. She moved off ahead of him and decloaked just outside the gate, drawing her sword and slashing up at the stealth detector at the top, pulling it down with a crash as alarms and klaxons started to go off in the enclosed space.


	34. "There’s now a dozen laser generators pointed at you, and I think you want to live.”

The wookie turned toward her with a roar and a howl; but fighting anything with the help of the cursed sword had become almost too easy. She forgot that the plan had been to disable the flamethrower and instead simply uses the force to rip it from the wookie’s shoulder and toss it against the fence where it started to smoke and leak fuel.

The wookie drew his bowcaster and activated the jetpack, intending to just shoot her no doubt, but instead the movement revealed the location of the jetpack controls. Using the force to find them would have wasted precious seconds -- but with the location revealed to her she simply turned the dial to max. The engine groaned at an earsplitting high pitch, and the wookie tried to undo the straps in a panic but couldn’t seem to manage.

The intent had been to simply launch him away, but the engine exploded instead; and there was a very furry fireball that splattered across the enclosure.

Then the flame thrower, hit by slag from the jetpack, exploded and caught everything flammable in a fifty foot circle on fire.

From the other end of the enclosed space, the sound of shouting rang out as a battalion of imperial soldiers, probably assigned to guard the other entrance, jumped into action at the sight of the flames, they spread out along the fence, and Tal’shanri wasn’t entirely sure why they would do that. Maybe they were putting out the fires? Something wasn’t right about that strategy, but she didn’t immediately react to stop them even though the sword shouted in her mind to kill them all quickly.

The Commanding Officer crossed his arms and looked at her disapprovingly. “Never thought it would be an Imperial Spy that got this far. We were told to be on guard for a Jedi.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

The Commanding Officer laughed, “Oh, I know there’s a cloaked Jedi here, I just wanted to be sporting and give you the chance to turn them over to us.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because there’s now a dozen laser generators pointed at you, and I think you want to live.”

The entire floor of the space glowed red, and Tal’shanri realized at once that she had lost track of Theron. This was bad. She should have known to not let the soldiers spread out. The sword was screaming in her mind enraged as it burned against her hands in complaint that she hadn’t listened and was now in a bad position. “Turn yourself over Jedi. Don’t let the imperial traitor die for you.”

Theron deactivated his stealth generator. “I surrender.”

“Guards, hold him.” Tal’shanri watched as two of the soldiers grabbed Theron and stuck him in force cuffs. “Take him to the cell block. Revan will want to personally deal with the Jedi who interfered on Rakata Prime.”

Theron struggled against the guards, “You said if I surrendered—“

“I never said anything about what I’d do. I’m still going to kill your friend. Now, now I’ll just do it while you watch.” Tal’shanri desperately wanted to communicate to Theron that she would be fine, and that his safety is the real reason she was standing there waiting; but she couldn’t without being obvious and simply kept her face blank until Theron was clear of the laser grid.

“Any last words Imperial trash?"

“Ya. He’s not the Jedi.”

The chain link fence around the enclosure was smoldering with burning creeper vine, and Tal’shanri pulled it down onto all the soldiers ringing the perimeter and manning the laser generators with a single move. Then, with a sweeping gesture she sent a wave of force across the fence, adding oxygen to all the smoldering vines, all of which immediately burst into a scalding hot micro infernos that also caught the scrub grass underneath the trapped soldiers on fire.

All the trapped men screamed helplessly, the fires hot enough to cause third degree burns but not quite hot enough to kill. They would all die, slowly, and Tal’shanri felt the screaming in her mind abate at that, the splitting headache gone now that she had dealt with the threat.

The Commanding Officer she simply hit with a force mesmerize and he dropped to the ground. Tal’shanri stepped right over his body as she walked towards the two guards holding Theron. “You have one chance to decide if—“ both guards dropped their weapons and cowered in front of her. Theron looked uneasy as the sound of screams from the men burning to death grew more and more shrill and panicked.

“Let them go Tal’shanri. They’ve surrendered

No. She couldn’t do that. She _needs_ to kill them. She doesn’t want to, she _needs_ to. There was a starving hunger gnawing at her bones again, the Sith Beast that has been cooperative until now about staying just under the surface, and on the edges of her mind now whispering to her that if she didn’t kill them, it would.

The beast was too intertwined with her own conscious anymore; she might have been able to keep from losing control completely if it pushed her, but… The voice in her mind just laughed, and then whispered softly, sensually, that she didn’t owe Theron anything – that it wasn’t him she wanted and that Lana would have already killed the two guards and the commanding officer and moved on.

Tal'shanri had been trying so hard not to think about Lana. Of the dreams. Of three months on Manaan and how she would notice little hints of Lana everywhere; of how she would wake up in the middle of the night and desperately try to hold onto the fragmented dreams of desire that burned all over.

It was only flicker of time that she was distracted, what must have looked to Theron like a moment of hesitation but to Tal’shanri felt so much longer.

“Go,” Tal’shanri sighed and gestured back the way they had just come, and the two guards dashed away. Theron looked at her with visible relief in his eyes.

“You had me worried for a second.”

“Let’s just move on before they shoot us in the back.” She sighed a second time, wearily, and let Theron get a few steps ahead of her; just enough that she was sure he didn’t have line of sight to the commanding officer and fleeing guards. Then with a gesture that was half flicking ash and burnt fur off her uniform, half force gesture, she hit the two fleeing guards with a force mesmerize as well, leaving all three of them in a pile in the center of the enclosure.


	35. “Would you rather I smash it with my sword?"

There was a single laser generator still standing, and she and Theron walked right past it. Tal’shanri flicked the switch to on and Theron turned at the sound of it warming up. “It’ll overheat if I leave it running.” Tal’shanri shrugged casually, but Theron’s eyes narrowed. “Would you rather I smash it with my sword? I’m not leaving it standing.”

“And I suppose it will just happen to vaporize the commanding officer you stunned?” Theron didn’t entirely seem to disapprove of that.

“I think I’ll claim selective Jedi ignorance about if that could happen.” They both laughed at that. They both also knew that was exactly the plan, and that laughing about it didn’t make it any less an act of murder.

They passed through the tunnel and out of the slave camp, and into what seemed to be the Revanite stronghold. There were a series of reinforced bunkers ringing a central mess hall with hard shell tents squished along the edges of the rectangular glade. A stream cut down from the mountain side passing through the camp and ending in waterfall. At the apex of the stream and most of the way up the mountain, Tal’shanri could just make out the top edge of a signal jammer.

Their goal was in sight. Unfortunately so was the glimmer of a shield blocking access to the river; and now there were even more fleet ships in orbit. None of them were capital ships yet, but, the sky looked like lifeday with red and green lasers from multiple sizes of ship flickering overhead.

“We’ll have to disable the computer systems to lower the force field.” Theron pointed to a bunker with a radio transmitter dish on top. “That’s the bunker, at least it should be easy compared to fighting a wookie.” He activated his stealth generator and Tal’shanri cloaked herself in the force and followed him.

There were a half dozen guards in the bunker, and this time Tal’shanri didn’t let Theron get in a word edgewise about how she should handle the fight – she simply decloaks, stabs two guards, the others turning to look at her stunned at her appearance. Before they could react, however, she flicked force lightning at them from the edge of her sword and they all fell to the ground dead in an instant.

Theron wordlessly stepped over the bodies and began typing away at the terminal. “I’ve disabled the shield, but I think you should go on alone.”

Tal’shanri did a double-take. “You fought a wookie with a flamethrower so—“

“No. You did.” Theron looked at her sadly. “You also tortured those soldiers. You could have simply left them trapped under the fencing, but, you burned them to death instead.” He held up his hands to stop her from interrupting, “That efficiency may be what we need right now. There’s billions of life depending on us taking that jammer down – and far be it from me to lecture you on morality when I’ve certainly killed my fair share of innocent men.”

“Theron, I’m sorry. I guess we’ve both done things we shouldn’t have” Tal’shanri moved to stand behind Theron, and then put an arm around his shoulder in a half-hug. He leaned against her, his head against her shoulder while they both pretended to stare at something on the computer screen. Her fingers brushed his and he didn’t draw away.

“Ya. We both have skeletons on our pasts,” Theron was still pretending to stare at the computer as he spoke, “Speaking of which, you never did finish answering my question about Sith Alchemy. Are you going to tell me?”

“No.” She wanted to tell him. But. Not here. Not now. Not when he there was a mission that might need her to be that monster. It hurt her to not tell him, but Tal’sharni knew the mission had to come first.

He dropped her hand.

“I will find out you know.” It wasn’t a threat, but the Sith beast almost took it as one, and Tal’shanri only just managed to stay in control. “And, if you won’t at least give me a starting point I can’t promise my investigation won’t be noticed.”


	36. Justified anger amplified into a raw rage that turned into problematic patterns of thinking.

The force shield now down Tal’shanri recloaked and ran up the river, racing and moving faster than she knew she should. She wasn’t angry at Theron for attempting to find out the truth; if anything she was grateful to be alone again, it was much easier this way.

It was the slave camp at the foot of the volcano still bothering her, and the more she thinks about it, the more it burns just how preventable that it all seemed. Seemingly everything on Rishi was unjust! Which, was a hypocritical thought considering how much extra-judicial power she had a Jedi, but there was a feedback loop in her mind that Tal’shanri wasn’t paying attention to.

It was the same warped perception of justice she had felt about killing all the Nova Blades on the docks. Justified anger amplified into a raw rage that turned into problematic patterns of thinking. Only this time, there was no small voice of moral conscious to intervene — it had been pushed aside and quieted one too many times, and was barely the softest whisper anymore, and Tal’shanri was too invested in letting rage cloud her judgement to stop and think.

There was a second guarded enclosure at the top of the ridge, protected by another anti-stealth gate. This time it was a Jedi and a Sith standing guard. From a distance their voices carried as they sparred against one another. The match wasn’t exactly friendly. They both wanted to win and they were an even match, but it was simply something to do to pass the time, and not a fight to kill one another.

Watching them spar gave Tal’shanri an idea. A dark idea that startled herself, but one she knew would work from the moment it was a conscious thought. Tal’shanri found a spot just off the river to kneel in meditation, making sure she has a clear view down into the enclosure; and then she steadied her breathing, slowly letting the force flow through her as she reached out to sense the feelings from the both the Jedi and the Sith.

Using the force to plant a subconscious suggestion wasn't exactly the same type of torture she had used on Darok; although, it’s rooted in the same idea that she could force one of the two of them to do anything she wanted. This time there were no commands, no shouting, no wild sense of power, just an unease that she was doing something she shouldn’t be.

Jedi Master Obi’s thoughts reminded her strongly of Master Yuon. Obi was older, with white hair to match his white robes; and full of a lifetime of regrets for all the things he never did as a Jedi. His Padawan had joined the Revanites, full of ambition and dreams of reforming The Order. He had come to retrieve his lost Padawan, only to find himself convinced of The Order’s many sins.

He still held the emotionless peace of the Jedi, parrying and fighting with a single saber, other hand behind his back; as he flowed through different forms with the ease of a lifetime of practice.  He didn’t believe in the Revanites, but this was more purpose then he had ever felt among The Order. There was nothing his mind that seemed easy to manipulate.

The Sith Lord meanwhile, Lord Vodd, did believe in the Revanites, and always had. Even before she had ended up at the Sith Academy she had sought out the Order of Revan on Drommund Kaas. She believed in power no matter the source. It wasn’t the normal Sith Rage that fueled her, but a hunger for recognition from her peers.

Vodd wasn’t quite dark council material; and yet, she wanted to be. That was a powerful driving emotion for her, that need to prove herself — and that was something Tal’shanri could work with, could manipulate. It really only took a single suggestion, a carefully planted thought: “The Jedi is going easy on you. He doesn’t think you can beat him.”

And at that suggestion, Tal’shanri watched the battle escalate, until in a fit of Sith-y rage Vodd flung a lightning bolt at Obi, and the Jedi Master crumpled to the ground dead.

Simply force stunning the Sith Lord would be easy and Tal’shanri stood and started to head for the enclosure when she felt a familiar presence.


	37. “Pity then, guess I didn’t need my hostage after all.”

Zan’narel.

He sprang from the shadows with a feral grace and knocked Lord Vodd to the ground with a pounce. She seemed completely stunned by this turn of events and didn’t hit the knight with lightning — instead knocking him back with a force wave while not even drawing her saber.  Tal’shanri couldn’t hear their conversation, but she recognized the lovesick look in Vodd’s eyes even from a distance.

Tal’shanri could, however, hear Zan’narel’s cruel laugh as he stabbed Lord Vodd straight through the heart with his saber, and even though she was cloaked, he turned to stare right at her, fangs out in a snarl. She dropped the cloak and calmly walked the rest of the way to where he was standing between the two bodies.

“Let me talk to the beast.” Zan’narel stared at her, and Tal’shanri held his gaze unflinchingly. “Master O’a was surprisingly forthcoming when I threatened to rip out his tongue — I had hoped to provoke you back at the Revanite base, that once you started killing Imperials that the beast would take over and I’d finally get a chance to kill one more of the Emperor’s abominations!”

“You don’t want to do that,” her voice skipped up to the sharp metallic trill the sword liked to speak with. “I want to make you suffer first! I have plans for you, ones that don’t involve you dying quickly. You think you’re a match for us?” The laugh was a high pitched Sith villain cackle, “Please! Even Tal’shanri alone could have destroyed you with her eyes closed.”

Zan’narel seemed momentarily perplexed by this turn of events. He legitimately didn’t seem to know what to do to get the fight he wanted and he just paced back and forth, eyes never leaving her while he calculated. “I didn’t betray the Jedi Order to fight a talking weapon.” He shook his head in disappointment. “I had hoped you would be reasonable if I confronted you a second time and told you what I know. You know you can’t be allowed to live. You’re a monster and a Sith freak. Now let me kill the beast!”

“Provoking me won’t work.” Tal’shanri put more confidence in that statement then she really felt. “And you know you can’t beat me in a fight. Now stand aside and let me pass. I won’t ask again, and I will kill you if you resist any farther.”

Zan’narel slowly walked backwards towards the passageway he had leapt out of, eyes staying locked on her. He was up to something. “How sure are you that I can’t provoke the beast out of you?”

Tal’shanri stopped. “I’m certain.”

“Pity then, guess I didn’t need my hostage after all.” Zan’narel drew his saber and stabbed somebody in the shadows that Tal’shanri couldn’t tell who it was. “Poor Nadia is going to be so upset when I tell her that Felix—“

Felix.

_No._

**No.**

_**No!** _


	38. "The price to reverse death is a debt you cannot escape."

Time stopped.

This wasn’t like down at the dock when time had been slowed either. Everything is completely frozen. It was only her and the Sith Beast; the voice of the sword blessedly silent for a moment.

“What do you want?” A shadow flowed out of her, formless except for dark red eyes. “You do have a choice here Barsen’thor. You see, I like you. I like our dreams. I like living inside your mind. I like this whole arrangement we have.” It chuckled, and as a shadow and not a beast it had a mild voice, soft, like talking to a a well-heeled Imperial from Ziost. “I even like our friend the cursed sword, at least most of the time. She’s rather a shouty sort of creature, but useful to us.”

“Now, we could transform and tear Zan’narel to pieces. Certainly I think all three of us would be satisfied with the taste of blood and screams. I think you’d probably even keep the sharp teeth—“

“Wait. So I have been changing, that’s not just my mind playing tricks on me.” Tal’shanri interrupted, still trying to process everything, and held up her grey streaked hands to look at them again – the grey was hardly visible, just two shades lighter than her skin, but it felt different.

“Correct. I’m a creature made from alchemy, I am, by definition an agent of change. I never quite know ahead of time what form you might give me. I certainly wouldn’t have expected to have a conversation with you looking like this, or sounding like this. And yet, this is what you think of me. A shadow and a Sith.”

“But really, I could be anything you wanted — and that dear Jedi is why we’re here, unstuck in time. We have the power to remake this situation a thousand different ways, and yet you, not I, are incapable of choice. You don’t know what you want — only that feel a want within you.”

“You want to save your beloved soldier; and yet, even though you have used your power to pause the galaxy in order to do so, you have doubts about it. Fear. You love him and yet know that he’s already lost to you. He loves you, and yet he knows that you’ll never need him in the way he wants to be needed.”

“There is a way for you to save him.” The shadow paused speaking and briefly seemed reluctant to continue. “Although, you’d be better off with sharp teeth and claws taking revenge on Zan’neral instead — that option comes with no price save the memory. The price to reverse death is a debt you cannot escape. You’ll have to commit fully to a path I don’t think you want to walk.”

Tal’shanri didn’t say anything, she still needed time to think, and she found herself walking over to Zan’narel and Felix. In two months since she had last saw him, Felix looked like he had aged considerably. There was a streak of white hair in his sideburns that hadn’t been there at the trial. He had lost weight too, and, then she saw a dozen signs at all once. Revanite armor, a new scar along his jawline, a literal hunger in his frozen expression, stubble that’s more than five o’clock shadow; and just an overall exhaustion about him that brought to mind what he had looked like after briefly being captured on Corelia.

Felix had sometimes talked about a wish to go undercover — just for one mission, to remind himself what he wasn’t missing out on as a soldier instead of a spy — and he must have been on Rishi for weeks to look like this. Had he been the one to call the Jedi council to send help? A gut feeling said that was true, that Felix always knew when to call for backup. He just wasn’t always the best as extricating himself to safety after doing so.

Tal’shanri ran her hand across his cheek, “I shouldn’t feel about you the way I do. You’d tell me I was being ridiculous, stopping time out of love for my best friend — and I know you wouldn’t want me to do what I’m about to do. But, I won’t let you die like this, not if I can prevent it.” She softly kisses the tip of his nose, “I’m so sorry Felix, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes to save you.”

“You will regret this choice, but, I will help you make it.”


	39. “You’re the one with visions of the future.”

The shadow creature slunk over, red eyes resting on Zan’narel’s saber that was still embedded in Felix’s chest. “We will only have an instant once time restarts, any more than that and he might not be the same afterwards. There’s no guarantees with any of this.”

“What do you mean no guarantees?”

“The dark side of the force can heal, but, there’s always a price. I don’t know what it will be for him. I only know that between you and I we have the power to heal him.” There was an edge to the shadow’s voice, a weariness that it knew the end from the beginning and didn’t like where this was headed. “You’re the one with visions of the future.”

Tal’shanri looked over at the shadow again, unable to gain any sense at all if it was telling the truth about any of this. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“That it will hurt.” The shadow flowed back into her, and the next words were the same beastly teeth clicking hiss she had grown used to. “And that you’ll have to fight Zan’narel without using the force.”

There was no preparing for what might come next, Tal’shanri knew that; all she could do fix her mind upon the conviction that this was simply the latest in a long line of improbable healings. There was surety there; an absolute confidence that whatever might happen, she was capable of enduring.

Time restarted with a simple thought command and Tal’shnari knocked Zan’narel’s lightsaber from his grasp in a swift kick before the Cathar could even process that she had somehow moved from across an open space to right on top of him. He rebounded instantly — force pulling his saber back into his hand, although he didn’t use it and simply charged at her, claws out and lunging for her throat.

She managed to raise her own weapon just in time to shove Zan’narel back with blow to his shoulder. But it was just a sword at the moment — it was incapable of communicating to her while her connection to the force was cut – and not even a particularly sharp one at that. A strike that would have normally taken Zan’narel’s arm clean off barely seemed to have nicked his skin.

Tal’shanri’s connection to the Force was just gone, completely cut, while the energy she would have normally been drawing from it was being siphoned off and into Felix. What replaced the light in her mind that had been the force was hollowness, an agony of loss that was quickly spreading through her. Pain like that she had known only once before, in a dream, in a nightmare; and Tal’shanri knew then that she had been tricked, and she was almost certainly going to die from trying to do this.

Zan’narel, meanwhile, looked at his shoulder and laughed. “The Barsen’thor of the Jedi Order, Warden and Protector, and you think you can fight /me/ with some rust covered relic?!” He lashed out with a force kick, and she doesn’t move fast enough to dodge. She did stay upright, but only just.

“You can still surrender Zan’narel.” Tal’shanri was herself again, no other voices in her mind but her own – and through the pain, even without the force, the familiar phrase radiated with power. “You don’t have to betray The Order. You can return home. There is still time to turn back from the darkness.” She dropped the functionally useless sword to the ground with a clatter and stood stoically before him even as Zan’narel’s eyes widened in shock then terror.

“There is always hope.” She took a step towards him and he recoiled from her as if she had hit him. “There is always a way back.” She kept moving towards him – despite the fact that each step felt like trying to wade through a swamp, her whole body heavy and aching – and even though she was unarmed and he could have almost certainly killed her with a single blow he kept backing away. “You can always choose to be better than your worst impulses. I believe that there’s still good in you, that you want to do the right thing.”

Her words were coming slower and slower; softer and softer. She was dying inch by inch. Every bone in her body felt like it was cracking apart.

“You can—” It burned to speak and the words came out as a dying breath rasp. But, even if she was about to die, at least Felix wasn’t dead anymore. She could see the smallest movement in his chest.

Zan’narel shook his head and closed his eyes. “No! No more mind tricks!” He drew his saber and stepped toward her again. Tal’shanri couldn’t move. Even if she had wanted to defend herself, she was only an inch from death now. Her breath shallow, heartbeat barely there.

Death smiled at her, and touched her shoulder; a deep and everlasting peace falling upon her mind as sweet whisper filled her thoughts, “It’s good to finally meet you Barsen’thor.”


	40. Interlude

A dark skinned woman that Tal’shanri had never seen before in her life was speaking, and she gently took Tal’shanri’s hand in her own. “You died. But, you’re still anchored to my son.”

“Felix was here a moment ago. Dead just long enough to hug his mother before you pulled him back.” The woman smiled, and it was such an irrepressibly cheerful expression of love that Tal’shanri could feel it as a physical force. “I died when he was so young. I’ve been watching over him ever since — waiting here in this in between place so that one day I would be there for him when he crossed over.”

“I had always hoped he would find a woman like you you know. Have kids, become a dad, raise a family; save the Republic too of course! But, my dream for my son was always that he would find somebody to love him how I wanted to. I know why that can’t be you, but, I still wanted to meet you. To thank you for being a friend to my son, and for saving his life.”

“You have to go back now.” There was a deep sadness to that statement. “Even if you were to try to pass onward, you would find only closed doors beyond this point. When it’s your time, when you are meant to stroll among the gardens in eternal sunshine, I believe those doors will be open to you — but you still have a destiny to fulfill.”

The woman squeezed Tal’shanri’s hand again, “I’ll see you again someday I hope.” The vision started to fade, and the pain return. “Remember, you can always choose to do the right thing, never lose sight that you will always have the ability to choose your actions, even if you can’t choose the consequences.”

For a single moment there was only the utterly consuming pain of death. Zan’narel’s lightsaber was now a fraction of a second away from striking her down; but the moment she was again fully conscious the force returned to her with the crash of a wild wave.

 


	41. Rusty sword. Pffft.

The rush of pure energy sent a pleasurable chill down Tal’shanri’s spine. Stars that felt good.

She grabbed Zan’narel’s wrist, and heard the bone crack and him yelp in pain. His lightsaber started to heat up and he flexed his fingers to drop the weapon only to find she had pinched his hand so that he couldn’t. The purple blade started to grow darker and darker until it was a single step above black; the casing growing hotter and hotter.

It burned the fur on his hands first, then the skin, then muscle. He was howling in agony now, thrashing and trying to break her grip; but she was half Sith Beast now. Like this she really could rip out his throat. It was a startling thought, and for a moment she seriously considered it. She pinned him to the passageway wall; and while Tal’shanri could no longer feel the heat from the melting saber, Zan’narel was in hysterics.

His whole hand was gone now, melted, and the expanding bubble of heat didn’t show any sign of collapsing either. The slow motion explosion that had once been a lightsaber was now balanced on her fingertips and Tal’sharni let the saber drop to the floor, intentionally onto Zan’narel’s feet.

He was in too much pain and shock to make any more noise, only still alive because the lack of blood loss. The saber fizzled for a moment then simply died. Pity it hadn’t been as dramatic an explosion as the last one. There were third degree burns all over Zan’narel’s legs and feet, but they weren’t melted to the point where he couldn’t stand. Although maybe they were. Tal’shanri was still holding him against the wall. His weight was nothing to her and she had almost forgotten she was holding him up.

“Hello Zan’narel,” she hissed as the beast and he blinked at her with pain addled eyes. “You wanted to meet me. Here I am.”

“I knew it. Knew you were a beast.” He should have been in far too much pain to talk, but not only was he managing to speak there was even a delirious note of triumph to his voice. “The Order will kill—“ At that Tal’sharni did rip out his throat; sharp fangs not entirely effective against fur in the first bite – although she did manage to pull enough flesh off his neck that he gurgled helplessly and began to choke on his own blood.

She spat out a mouthful of flesh and fur. It tasted disgusting. Oily unwashed fur was right up there with the drink Jen had given her in things Tal’shanri never wanted in her mouth again.

Zan’narel would almost certainly die from some combination of burns and blood loss and she let him drop to the floor in a pool of bodily fluids. He didn’t get up.

Felix was still only an inch from death, alive but incredibly unwell. His forehead burned to the touch, and his eyelids fluttered rapidly. He was dreaming. A nightmare she’s sure. “We’ll get you help. Once that jammer is down I won’t leave your side until a medical transport comes for you.” She hadn’t shifted back, still mostly beast, and her words came out as a half snarl.

She brushed a claw across his forehead, and would have kissed his cheek, but she still had fur in her teeth.

There was a moment when she almost considered leaving the sword there. Some help it had been as an actual weapon, but she picked it up again with a sigh. It was comically small and totally incorrectly proportioned for her now.

To her surprise it apologized, shouting subdued for the moment. It was good to have the third presence back in her mind; the familiar darkness again settling over her. There was one last time to do before continuing on, and she stabbed Zan’narel several times. Just to make absolutely sure he stayed dead. Rusty sword. Pffft.


	42. "I think we need to establish some ground rules.”

Tal’shanri was done sneaking around, and made her way through the short tunnel to the final mountain top plateau with serpentine grace and a lithe long stride. The background sound of AA guns was all she could hear, no guards, no sense that it wasn’t all completely automated.

Shame. She had been looking forward to more killing.

She exited tunnel and found the plateau was larger than she had been expecting. There were two dozen AA guns located in two rings around the cliff edge and all targeting Republic ships. The Jammer was on the far edge of the plateau, and it was well protected. Despite the lack of obvious guards there was an armored walker in active firing stance; and the platform it was on was shielded with no obvious external power source to disable.

That shield was a huge problem, and Tal’shanri looked up at the sky trying to figure out if she was too late to stop massive causalities. It looked like both fleets were taking heavy losses. The Republic more than Imperials give the AA guns on the surface were also hitting them. She didn’t see the Massive Capital ships in orbit yet – which meant there was still time. How much time she didn’t know.

“I have an idea for how to take down the shield generator. It’ll go faster if you first go get the fur out of those pearly white fangs of yours, and then come help.”

“Ah. We haven’t formally met yet bounty hunter and I think we need to establish some ground rules.” Tal’shanri, still more beast than Chiss, turned toward Jen who was halfway buried under a computer terminal rigging a bomb. Jen stopped just long enough to poke her head out at the hissing snarl of the Sith Beast to signify she was listening.

“I’m not going to promise anything, but, you I will negotiate with.” Jen’s tone was the same slightly accented formal Kassian inflection Tal’shanri remembered from Manaan. What had brought that on? “There is one condition. I still get to insult the Jedi.”

Tal’shanri objected, but found she was not in control anymore. “That is agreeable.” The Sith beast smiled as Tal’shanri resisted, screaming in her own mind. Never before had this happened. Previously she could always get control back when had she wanted — but now she was a prisoner in her own body. “I’m impressed you could tell so quickly that I was in complete control. I’m so glad we’re on the same side.”

“Look I’m on the clock for another job, so, if you have a deal to make, make your offer, if not I need to get back to work.”

The Sith beast laughed, “The former Darth Baras wants in on your plans — I want his head on a pike instead. It’ll make a nice gift for the current Dark Council.”

“Deal. I’ll even do that for free and collect from the Dark Council instead. But, I don’t think that’s all you wanted. You could easily kill Baras yourself, you hardly need me for that.”

“No, I don’t need you for it, but it positions you as loyal to the right kind of Sith Lord. We both know who you really want to kill, I’ll get you close.”

Jen’s expression switched to deep, deep, hatred. “If you get me his family first…” she trailed off, and to say there was murder in her eyes would have been a massive understatement. She broke into soft dangerous laughter, “We’re going to get along just fine. But, I still have a job to do and I don’t need a scaley monster to help rig explosives, I need somebody else with hands.”

Tal’shanri still had no control, and couldn’t stop the Sith Beast from drawing the sword, comical as it looked, and smirking at Jen before cutting a hole clean through the forcefield. The walker wasted several barrages of concussion missiles that exploded uselessly, and even the heavy lasers felt like little more than pinpricks.

Jen looked strangely nonplussed about it, as if she had seen it before.

Flexing its claws, the beast trashed the walker with a blast of dark black lightning, making sure that both guards inside died screaming. It had never used the force before, and doing so seemed to loosen its grip on her mind. “We’ll meet again bounty hunter,” there’s slippage between its hiss and Tal’shanri’s regular voice and Jen clearly took note of it.

 At least, after that, Tal’shanri was again in control of her mind and she shrank back into being herself.


End file.
